Women Who Can – Women in Law Pre-Law Conference 2019

On October 2, 2019, the Women in Law Committee hosted their pre-law conference with the timely theme of “I Am the Woman Who Can: Celebrating the Last 100 Years from Voting to Law School.” Held at BYU Law School, the room was filled to bursting to hear inspiring remarks from Provo Mayor Michelle Kaufusi and Jane Wise, Associate Director for the International Center for Law and Religion Studies.  

Mayor Kaufusi, the first woman mayor of Provo, epitomizes a Woman Who Can. She told of her initial anxiety in beginning a career in politics. But, after winning the mayoral race, she shared her insight that women can serve in grander ways if we don’t hold ourselves back and are willing to take risks. She said that she has learned that great people are still just people who have leaned into the stiff wind of opportunity. Mayor Kaufusi encouraged us to consider a life in public service stating that, “You will never ever regret serving in public office. You will get to make things happen and have a seat at the table.” Even if politics is not for us, she reminded us that we, too, should be Women Who Can, by rising up and facing our challenges. 

Another Woman Who Can, Jane Wise, entitled her remarks, “The First 100 Years Are the Hardest.” Speaking of the ratification of the 19^th Amendment, Jane reminded us that this marvelous accomplishment is marked whenever a woman votes. She reminded us of other notable endeavors that have forged a path for her, and all women, to succeed in their chosen fields, such as that of Phoebe Couzins, the first female attorney in Utah. Although that was a breakthrough for women, from that time (1872) until now, there have been no roadmaps to guide us. 

In Jane’s youth, there were only a handful of popular occupations for women: teacher, secretary, nurse, or stewardess. Jane decided on acting and was blissfully pursuing roles in Community Theater and at the University of Utah when a female friend told her she was going to law school. Jane’s father had pushed her toward law before, but it wasn’t until this friend provided an example that Jane acted on this idea, too, providing evidence for her first rule of life: Always act on a good idea because it will be the catalyst for change. 

Although she was excited about this decision, Jane did not enjoy law school. Perhaps it was because the competitive nature of law school motivated others to sabotage each other, going so far as to rip important cases out of library textbooks. Jane was so discouraged that she quit as a 2L and headed for Hollywood. Not finding instant success, she returned to the University of Utah Law School and graduated, bringing her to her second rule of life: You have to hold onto life and wait until everything plays out. However, she still questioned her path, especially when seeing stellar actors such as Amanda Plummer made her yearn to abandon law in favor of her first passion.

Nevertheless, Jane persevered in the law, using her former drama coach’s wisdom to formulate her third rule of life: Curiosity is the key to humanity. The coach, Ursel Allred, meant that one had to find the person one was portraying by being curious about who the person was, and walking in their shoes. The same thing applies well to the law. Before one can understand one’s clients, one must consider things from their point of view. Sometimes to see one’s clients as having a common core of humanity requires us to have curiosity beyond our world of experience. This was true when Jane had to enter a prison to interview an inmate. There are 7 million individuals in the jail system and many are mentally ill. When they speak, they often do not just state their ideas but express their anger and disrespect as well. Sometimes it requires a great deal of curiosity to walk in their shoes and understand them. 

But, Jane’s 4^th life lesson tells us that curiosity does not fix the harm and a great deal of courage is required of us to forge ahead with the assurance that there can be a happy ending. It is easy to become disillusioned at times without this level of courage. She talked about a student of hers at BYU Law School who was born in Haiti and raised on the streets with almost no access to formal education. After meeting the LDS missionaries, he turned his life around, but his law studies were not without great difficulty. After giving him extra help, this student presented Jane with a statue of a runaway slave blowing out a call for help on a shell. He epitomized living a life of courage.

Jane’s parting words to WIL were to remember the four life lessons when pursuing our different paths and to always believe that we women are united even in our differences. We are very grateful for these lessons and for the examples of these two women who are Women Who Can. 

Armed with these stirring words, the meeting adjourned to a networking session where current and prospective law students had the opportunity to discuss their future careers with established attorneys. At a ratio of 5 students to 1 attorney, the attorneys helped their fledgling counterparts crystalize their goals, consider optional paths to achieve them, and make important connections. As one attorney said, “I could have saved years of struggling in the wrong legal field had I had such a networking opportunity early on. Women guiding women is such a powerful concept. We need to help the new female attorneys forge an easier path than we did.”

Article written by Kathryn Latour, member of JRCLS WIL and media committees