March 20, 2024 – It was a U.S. Supreme Court case that pushed Linda Roberson to go to law school. The case was Forbush v. Wallace, 341 F. Supp. 217 (M.D. Ala. 1971), aff’d mem., 405 U.S. 970 (1972).

In Forbush, the Supreme Court affirmed a federal district court ruling that upheld an Alabama state law requiring a woman to use her husband’s last name when applying for a driver’s license.

The plaintiff, Wendy Forbush, was a college classmate of Roberson’s. The high court’s ruling didn’t sit well with Roberson, who was newly married and had kept her own name.

Roberson marched over to the U.W. Law School library and asked for help researching the common law. Maurice Leon, the law school’s librarian, was happy to oblige.

“He was intrigued with the idea of this hippy-looking kid who wanted to research the English common law,” Roberson said. “So, he took me under his wing, and he taught me. That’s why I went to law school.”

Learning to Speak Up

Roberson’s route to Madison was a roundabout one.

She grew up in Missouri and Colorado. In Missouri, Roberson’s father farmed a 1,000-acre spread and worked as a banker, a profession he kept when the family moved to Colorado Springs, Colo.

“My father was a small-town banker,” Roberson said. “You knew everybody and if somebody came in and said, ‘I need $100 to buy my kids school clothes,’ Dad would pull it out of his wallet and say ‘Ok, here’s your loan.’”

When it came time to pick a college, Roberson looked eastward. A good friend, a musician, had applied to Oberlin College and Conservatory in Ohio.

When a teacher said he’d never let one of his daughters go to Oberlin because “they have hippies in Oberlin,” Roberson was intrigued.

Deciding to attend Oberlin was largely an act of rebellion, Roberson said. She said her experience at Oberlin was an eye-opener.

“I had lived a pretty sheltered small-town life, and there I was with all these kids from the East Coast whose parents had lost their jobs because of Joe McCarthy,” Roberson said.

She also learned skills at Oberlin sit-ins and protests that were useful for law school: how to speak up and speak out.

Law as ‘Survival Training’

After graduating from Oberlin with a degree in sociology, Roberson moved to Madison in 1969 and obtained a master’s degree in teaching from U.W.-Madison.

Roberson’s family had a teaching job lined up for her in Colorado Springs. But she stayed in Madison because she’d met Gary Young, her future husband.

After the couple married, the university hired Young to a three-year teaching contract. Roberson needed to find something to do for the next three years.

“I decided that I needed an advanced degree because when I said I was a kindergarten teacher, everybody sort of patted me on the head and said, ‘Well, that’s nice,’” Roberson said. “I am not the kind of person you pat on the head, never have been.”

Then the Forbush case hit, and Roberson had her encounter with Maruice Leon.

“I decided law could be very useful as survival training,” Roberson said. “If you’re going to take on the establishment, you better know how to speak their vernacular.”

Battle over Bathrooms

Roberson began law school in the fall of 1971.

The previous year’s incoming class had 15 women students. Roberson’s class had 30.

“My class was the class that changed the way the law school looked,” Roberson said.

Roberson’s class also changed the way the law school’s facilities looked.

The law building only had two women’s bathrooms – one on the second story and one in the back of the library stacks.

“You couldn’t get to class on time if you had two classes back-to-back and you needed to use the bathroom in between because you’d end up waiting in line,” Roberson said. “So, we started agitating for more bathrooms.”

Roberson even began using Dean George Bunn’s private bathroom three or four times a week.

“That became quite a thing the year I was pregnant,” Roberson said.

As a result of the efforts of Roberson’s class, the law school built more women’s bathrooms.

But with the work that I felt drawn to, that was a constant part of life. You would start out with people who were just a wreck, and over a period of months you could help them move to a better place and help them become the person they were always supposed to be.

‘Justice Delayed is Justice Denied’

The law school may have changed but many employers hadn’t.

As a newly minted lawyer in the fall of 1974, Roberson was one of 10 finalists for a hearing examiner position at the Department of Industry, Labor, and ​Human Relations. Eight of the other finalists were women; one was a man.

The man got the job.

Roberson and several of the other women finalists decided to sue the agency. But it took them three years to obtain a right-to-sue letter and by that time each of the would-be plaintiffs had moved on.

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” Roberson said.

More Than Just a Bill Drafter

Later in 1974, Roberson landed a legislative drafting position with the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB). It was the perfect place for her.

“There was all this fabulous progressive legislation that I got to be a part of,” Roberson said, citing a rewrite of the state’s divorce statute and the enactment of anti-discrimination and sexual assault statutes.

Roberson admits that she occasionally strayed beyond merely drafting legislation.

Sometimes she’d stand next to legislators during floor speeches, advising them on a bill she’d drafted. Other times she’d include in the bill summary her opinion on whether the bill was constitutional.

“I took people on because I had a platform to do it,” Roberson said.

Roberson served two legislative sessions before moving on.

“I was totally disabused of the idea that there was anything statesmanlike about the legislative process,” Roberson said. “I was ready to do something else.”

Strikes Out on Her Own

Roberson joined a small firm practicing family law. It was a natural fit for Roberson.

After all, she’d written the state’s new divorce law, which established a no-fault standard for divorce. And Margo Melli, her mentor in law school, taught family law.

Roberson enjoyed practicing family law. She didn’t enjoy the way the male partners ran the firm.

“They would retroactively change the compensation formula every year, so that they got paid more and I got paid less,” Roberson said.

Roberson also chafed under the firm’s rules for supervising support staff.

“I didn’t have the independent authority to say to my secretary, who has stayed four hours late yesterday helping me get ready for a trial, ‘You can take the afternoon off today,’” Roberson said.

Roberson decided to strike out on her own. With Linda Balisle, she founded a family law firm.

“They told us we would fail but we did not,” Roberson said. “We were the biggest family law firm in the state at one time.”

Family Law: A Calling

Roberson took a healing approach to practicing family law.

“What made it work for me was looking for the goodness in the person and trying to use that to make our way through the system so that we ended up with something that was fair to everybody and didn’t scorch any earth,” Roberson said.

Helping clients through the difficulties that typify family law disputes, Roberson said, “is a privilege.”

Roberson said that family law engaged her head as well as her heart.

“The divorce law was brand new, and I had written it,” Roberson said. “So, I had the opportunity to take this law that I’d had a big hand in crafting and litigate it.”

“We went to the appellate courts again and again and again, hammering out the fine points,” Roberson said. “It was intellectually satisfying to see something go from an idea to a statute – crafting the best law you could craft – and then being in court to help shape the case law.”

A ‘Raging Granny’

Now retired, Roberson and her husband spend much of each year in Florida, where her children and grandchildren live.

“When I turned 60, I made two promises to myself: that I was not going to wear shoes that didn’t fit and that I was not going to spend all winter in Wisconsin anymore – ever,” Roberson said.

The couple spend time cooking for their grandchildren and watching the grandchildren’s sporting events.

During the couple’s time in Wisconsin, Roberson puts in time as part of “The Raging Grannies,” a group of grandmothers who gather to sing satiric protest songs on the Capitol Square during the Dane County Farmer’s Market.

“I love being a Raging Grannie,” Roberson said. “I love the wordplay, I love the satire, I love the singing.”

Roberson said she’s grateful for a career that allowed her to help families in crisis.

“If you’re not a doctor or a certain type of lawyer, the only time you do that is with your close family,” Roberson said.

“But with the work that I felt drawn to, that was a constant part of life. You would start out with people who were just a wreck, and over a period of months you could help them move to a better place and help them become the person they were always supposed to be.”