Women Lawyers Over-Stressed and Underpaid--Still

PRLog (Press Release) - Nov 21, 2009 -
According to a new report from the White House Project called "Benchmarking Women’s Leadership," released last week, Women are almost half of all law school graduates, but they are missing from the partnership ranks at law firms. They are 18 percent of law partners and 25 percent of all judges and their salaries are sliding. Male equity partners earn $90,000 more than women partners. The “Godmother” of anti-Big Tobacco suits wants to change that disparity.

Madelyn Chaber, the attorney who won the first major lawsuit against Big Tobacco plans to change the gender gap among lawyers. Ms. Chaber, 60, now counsels women attorneys on managing stress in their delicate balance between their law practices and family life. Her practice is based in her home in Alameda, CA and she is an adjunct professor of Trial Advocacy at John F. Kennedy University in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Ms Chaber first encountered the cigarette companies in 1996 when she was representing Dr Milton Horowitz, a Beverly Hills psychotherapist, who was diagnosed with Mesothelioma, a fatal cancer caused by asbestos.  His cancer, it was determined, was caused by asbestos in the filter of Kent cigarettes, which he smoked in the 1950's.  Their lawsuit against Lorillard Tobacco Co. resulted in a $2 million verdict, including punitive damages, which was the first of its kind won by a plaintiff against a tobacco company.

In a statement issued today from Northwestern Law School in Chicago where Ms. Chaber is attending Third Annual Conference on "Avenues to Advancement,” “Lawyers rank number one in depression among all professional groups and stress feeds depression and what could be more stressful than working long hours and being paid less than your male colleagues.”

Chaber was a veteran San Francisco lawyer who represented retired shipyard workers dying of exposure to asbestos when she met a brassy lounge singer named Patricia Henley who ran a drain-cleaning business in Los Angeles. After smoking Marlboros for 35 years, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Facing an uncertain future, she was

determined to sue tobacco giant Philip Morris for what she was convinced were decades of deception and deceit.

"I told her from the beginning we were going to lose," said Ms. Chaber. The cigarette industry had been virtually unbeatable in court, suffering only two losses for relatively small amounts.

A year later in 1999, they made history, winning a $51 million award in San Francisco Superior Court -- the nation's first multimillion-dollar verdict against Big Tobacco.
Ms Chaber followed the Henley case with a second victory against Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds.

“I want to teach law students and lawyers a ‘new way’ to practice law,” Ms. Chaber said. “I have no intention of slowing down because there is a major need for women of the Bar to step up and step out, earn the money they deserve and live less stressful lives,” she added.

For more information about Ms. Chaber’s work, see http://www.optimalenergyleadership.com Telephone: 510-749-0175

Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/10422703/1