Bar Buzz: Women judges savor their place in history

In 1979, 23 women were appointed to the federal bench, more than doubling the number of women federal judges in the previous 190 year history of the United States. Forty years later, one-third of full-time, active Article III judges are women. The U.S. Courts will publish a series of articles on individual judges at https://www.uscourts.gov/news/1979 -year-women-changed-judiciary. The women judges of 1979 were aided by President Jimmy Carter’s drive to diversity the judiciary, a new vetting system that helped candidates without political connections and a 1978 law that created 153 new judgeships, the current article says. But, “[T]he key, however, was a new generation of women lawyers who were so conditioned to breaking glass ceilings that they weren’t daunted when their opportunity arrived.”