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  • InsideTrack
  • May 06, 2015

    Law Degree as License for Activism: Judith Lichtman Celebrates 50 Years as a Lawyer

    A 1965 U.W. Law School graduate goes on to fight for rights of women and families in Washington, D.C. as leader of the National Partnership for Women and Families. Judith Lichtman celebrates 50 years as a lawyer in 2015.

    Shannon Green

    May 6, 2015 – She didn’t intend to become a lawyer – but in her career, she has touched the lives of every person who holds a job in the U.S.

    Judith Levine Lichtman - who reaches 50 years in 2015 as a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin - has been called a guiding and influential force for the women’s movement for more than 40 years. She never intended to become a lawyer, but thanks to the advice of a young professor, Lichtman pursued law – and now is one of those responsible for legislation that has been used at least 200 million times in the past 22 years.

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    Judith Levine Lichtman has been called a guiding and influential force for the women’s movement for more than 40 years. She celebrates 50 years as a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin.

    Life’s Path, Redirected

    Growing up, Lichtman loved history. Her ultimate goal as an undergraduate was to become a professor of American history and political science, but all that changed when the New York-born Lichtman came to Wisconsin.

    While attending Hofstra University on Long Island, Lichtman acted on the advice of a history professor who told her that the best U.S. history program was at UW-Madison. Never having been much west of the Hudson River, she transferred to Wisconsin for her final undergraduate years with a plan to enter a doctorate program in political science.

    That plan changed completed when she approached a professor for a reference.

    That professor taught a course on Constitutional law that Lichtman “just loved.”

    Lichtman not only attended classes, but participated actively in the university’s organization that supported the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee – one of the most important organizations of the 1960s civil rights movement.

    “I was very much involved in campus activities encouraging people to go south” as activists against racial discrimination, Lichtman said.

    Aware of Lichtman’s dedication to civil rights, the professor told her: Go to law school.

    “I’d never, never thought of that for a second,” Lichtman said.

    That young professor later became chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court – Shirley Abrahamson.

    “I have said to her more than once over these many years she gets all of the credit and none of the blame,” Lichtman said.

    In law school, Lichtman– then Judith Levine – was one of two women in the 1965 graduating class of 150 students. In the early 1960s, for a woman to pursue something other than nursing, teaching, or social work was “pretty nontraditional,” Lichtman said.

    Graduating in the summer of 1965, Lichtman became a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin.

    “I remain a proud member to this day,” Lichtman said.

    A License for Activism

    Looking back on her career, Lichtman firmly asserts that the young Professor Shirley Abrahamson was absolutely right.

    After graduation, Lichtman took the New York bar exam, then headed to Washington, D.C.

    Her first job was “made in heaven for me” – working for the federal government to enforce Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Among other requirements, Title VI required public schools that used federal funds to desegregate.

    “My first job was going around to southern school districts and telling them what they had to comply with this brand new civil rights law,” she said.

    The next year, her life changed again: She met Elliott Lichtman, a young lawyer volunteering with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization using the resources available in private bars to combat racial discrimination and inequality of opportunity.

    Elliott’s work took him to Jackson, Mississippi. They married in 1967, and Lichtman became the first full-time white faculty member at Jackson State College (now University). She taught American history and American political theory, and volunteered with civil rights groups.

    “Our first year as newlyweds were as civil rights lawyers in Jackson,” Lichtman said.

    Two years later, the Lichtmans returned to Washington, D.C., where Lichtman held several civil rights positions, including with the Urban Coalition, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and as legal advisor to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

    In 1974, she became the first paid staff person for the Women’s Legal Defense Fund, later the National Partnership for Women and Families.

    The National Partnership

    Now Senior Advisor, she was hired as its first executive director, leading the group from a small volunteer organization to a leader in civil rights legislation for women and families, shaping national policy through advocacy, lobbying, litigation, and public education.

    Along the way, Lichtman was involved with prompting the federal government to enforce Title IX of the Higher Education Act of 1972 – that prohibits sex discrimination in education. She also worked to eliminate discrimination against pregnant women, beginning with an amicus brief involving a 1976 class action case, General Electric Co v. Gilbert, 429 U.S. 125 (1976), of a workplace disability plan that covered everything but disabilities arising from pregnancy. At losing the case, the National Partnership turned to Congress, which led to the passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978.

    “We at the National Partnership worked on every important every single important civil rights issue for women since our founding in 1971,” Lichtman said.

    The crown jewel of Lichtman’s career is also that of the National Partnership: The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993.

    Lichtman was its chief lobbyist.

    “The coalition was so broad and so deep,” Lichtman said, bringing together advocates from all areas of the political spectrum. “We had a lot to be proud of and yet we still couldn’t get it passed for nine years.”

    For over 40 years, I’ve tried to make this world a better place for women and families. We’ve come a long way, but our work is far from done. My daughters, and all our children, deserve a future where every school and workplace is truly free of discrimination, and where all families have the support they need to succeed at home and on the job. I know from experience – if we can imagine it, we can make it happen. – Judith Lichtman, U.W. 1965

    FMLA was eventually signed into law by President Bill Clinton in February 1993. Since then, it has been used more than 200 million times, providing job security for people struggling with a personal or family health emergency, or who are celebrating the addition of a new family member. That figure “bobbles my mind,” Lichtman said.

    The FMLA, however, does not provide for paid wage replacement – something Lichtman would like to see changed.

    “When it isn’t used, it’s because people can’t afford to take it,” Lichtman said.

    Preventing bankruptcies caused by health crises, as well as legislation that would require a minimum amount of paid sick days is the National Partnership’s next big push.

    “People appreciate the real struggles what families go through in maintaining economic security when they struggle to balance their work and family responsibilities. It’s not a choice people should have to make,” Lichtman said.

    ‘An Exciting Work Life’

    “I’ve been blessed,” Lichtman said.

    Her law degree gave her the “extraordinary opportunity” to work on issues to help make the world a better place, Lichtman said.

    Shannon Green is communications writer for the State Bar of Wisconsin, Madison. She can be reached by email or by phone at (608) 250-6135.

    “I will be forever grateful for what the University of Wisconsin Law School and being a practicing lawyer has allowed me to do professionally,” Lichtman said. “It doesn’t get much better than getting paid to work on issues you care about.”

    The country has changed much since the days where she was only one of two women in her U.W. Law School class. Today, the Dean of the U.W. Law School is a woman, and women are a majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. And now a woman is a candidate for President of the United States.

    “Both in job opportunities and glass ceilings being broken, we have come very far,” Lichtman said.

    Smarts and Savvy and Sense of Strategy

    And her work continues. Such work is accomplished through an inextricable link among advocacy, the non-governmental groups that seek to effect changes in public policy such at the National Partnership, the passage of legislation that makes a difference in people’s lives, the enacting of subsequent public policies and regulations, and the court challenges to those laws.

    Those court challenges can make the laws stronger.

    “You can see that when this great democracy works, you need all the smarts and savvy and sense of strategy of a strong legal advocacy community working to ensure the governmental levers of power work as they should to protect people from discrimination,” Lichtman said.

    Social change is not linear. You don’t win one battle and move on to the next – you have to be attentive to your victories, and keep fighting the legal attacks that come, even sometimes losing ground.

    “Along the way you have plenty of big horrible bumps,” Lichtman said. “One has to be attentive to safeguard those victories.

    “But I think overall we have had great progress and I think there’s some things you can’t take away anymore.” ​


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