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Courting Kathleen Hannigan
Courting Kathleen Hannigan is based on Mary Hutchings Reed's (Yale Law, '76) personal knowledge of what goes on behind those beautifully veneered law firm doors. Kathleen Hannigan shrewdly plays the partnership game with her whole heart until she is called to testify in a sex discrimination suit and is forced to choose between her partners and her principles.
256 pages, Paperback
First published August 29, 2007
167 people want to read
About the author
Mary Hutchings Reed
17 books17 followersEver since turning 40 a few years ago, Mary has been trying to become harder to introduce, and, at 66, she finds she’s been succeeding. Her conventional resume includes thirty nine years of practicing law, first with Sidley & Austin and then with Winston & Strawn, two of the largest firms in Chicago. She was a partner at both in the advertising, trademark, copyright, entertainment
and sports law areas, and retired February 1, 2015. She continues to write, do community service and pursue hobbies such as golf, sailing, tennis and bridge. Three of Mary's four novels have been ForewordINDIES Book of the Year Awards Fianalists.
Mary was raised in Crystal Lake, Illinois, then a small town forty five miles from Chicago. Her mother was a librarian and her father a PhD in chemical engineering, and that should explain everything. She has one sister, Donna C. Steele, born eleven months and two weeks after her, who skipped first grade so that the “Hutchings girls” were very much like twins—Donna the creative one (the Founder and Artistic Director of Steel Beam Theatre, St. Charles, IL) and Mary the logical one, and that should explain the rest of it!
She attended Prospect High School in Mt. Prospect, Illinois, where she loved being editor-in-chief of the school newspaper and on the speech events team, but was happy to graduate and move on to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She is “ever true to Brown” and grateful for lifelong friends she met there, as well as the intellectual encouragement she received from an inspirational faculty. She received both her bachelors (in public policymaking, an interdisciplinary program) and her masters (in economics) in four years, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1973. She then entered Yale Law School (having just missed the Clintons), where she won second prize in the Moot Court of Appeals competition–(“My husband doesn’t really believe in women in law,” one of the judge’s wives told her afterwards)–and chaired the Moot Court Board in her last year. She joined Sidley & Austin in 1976 and was elected to partner in 1983. Winston & Strawn recruited her in 1989 to help start their intellectual property department.
Mary married William R. Reed, an internist, in 1982. They just celebrated twenty five wonderful years together. It’s his fault she’s now a writer. In 1992, Mary took a leave of absence from law to sail from Norfolk, Va. to St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. with Bill in a 32 foot boat. (See Mary’s book, Captain Aunt), which took 22 days and nights. After three storms at sea and a few weeks of recovery at anchor in the Caribbean, Mary resigned her partnership in order to reduce her workload and refocus some of her energy on writing. She began to write every day and to study with Enid Powell in Chicago and Fred Shafer in Evanston. She has attended numerous writing conferences around the country, including
Breadloaf (Middlebury, Vermont), Tin House (Portland, Oregon) and Words and Music (New Orleans).
Mary's fiction has been honored as a finalist in the following competitions: William Wisdom/William Faulkner; Illinois Library Associaation's Soon to Be Famous author Project; Foreword Reviews' IndieFab; Eric Hoffer; Writers' Digest Self-Published, Florida Review Editors' Prize, and many others.
Mary and Bill have a new, smaller sailboat, If, still ocean-worthy, which they occasionally cruise up Lake Michigan and which they hope to take to salt water some time soon.
Mary also believes in community service, and for many years has served on the boards of various nonprofit organizations, including American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago, Off the Street Club and the Chicago Bar Foundation. She was honored as LAF's 2015 "Champion for Justice" by Chicago's Legal Assistance Foundation. She also sits on the board of her longest-standing service involvement, Lawyers for the Creative Arts. Her past three indie novels all benefit causes that Mary is passionate
and sports law areas, and retired February 1, 2015. She continues to write, do community service and pursue hobbies such as golf, sailing, tennis and bridge. Three of Mary's four novels have been ForewordINDIES Book of the Year Awards Fianalists.
Mary was raised in Crystal Lake, Illinois, then a small town forty five miles from Chicago. Her mother was a librarian and her father a PhD in chemical engineering, and that should explain everything. She has one sister, Donna C. Steele, born eleven months and two weeks after her, who skipped first grade so that the “Hutchings girls” were very much like twins—Donna the creative one (the Founder and Artistic Director of Steel Beam Theatre, St. Charles, IL) and Mary the logical one, and that should explain the rest of it!
She attended Prospect High School in Mt. Prospect, Illinois, where she loved being editor-in-chief of the school newspaper and on the speech events team, but was happy to graduate and move on to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She is “ever true to Brown” and grateful for lifelong friends she met there, as well as the intellectual encouragement she received from an inspirational faculty. She received both her bachelors (in public policymaking, an interdisciplinary program) and her masters (in economics) in four years, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1973. She then entered Yale Law School (having just missed the Clintons), where she won second prize in the Moot Court of Appeals competition–(“My husband doesn’t really believe in women in law,” one of the judge’s wives told her afterwards)–and chaired the Moot Court Board in her last year. She joined Sidley & Austin in 1976 and was elected to partner in 1983. Winston & Strawn recruited her in 1989 to help start their intellectual property department.
Mary married William R. Reed, an internist, in 1982. They just celebrated twenty five wonderful years together. It’s his fault she’s now a writer. In 1992, Mary took a leave of absence from law to sail from Norfolk, Va. to St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. with Bill in a 32 foot boat. (See Mary’s book, Captain Aunt), which took 22 days and nights. After three storms at sea and a few weeks of recovery at anchor in the Caribbean, Mary resigned her partnership in order to reduce her workload and refocus some of her energy on writing. She began to write every day and to study with Enid Powell in Chicago and Fred Shafer in Evanston. She has attended numerous writing conferences around the country, including
Breadloaf (Middlebury, Vermont), Tin House (Portland, Oregon) and Words and Music (New Orleans).
Mary's fiction has been honored as a finalist in the following competitions: William Wisdom/William Faulkner; Illinois Library Associaation's Soon to Be Famous author Project; Foreword Reviews' IndieFab; Eric Hoffer; Writers' Digest Self-Published, Florida Review Editors' Prize, and many others.
Mary and Bill have a new, smaller sailboat, If, still ocean-worthy, which they occasionally cruise up Lake Michigan and which they hope to take to salt water some time soon.
Mary also believes in community service, and for many years has served on the boards of various nonprofit organizations, including American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago, Off the Street Club and the Chicago Bar Foundation. She was honored as LAF's 2015 "Champion for Justice" by Chicago's Legal Assistance Foundation. She also sits on the board of her longest-standing service involvement, Lawyers for the Creative Arts. Her past three indie novels all benefit causes that Mary is passionate
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 17, 2016
I occasionally suspect that if a book speaks to my feminist mindset, if it's preaching to my choir, that I will LOVE THAT BOOK and think that every single person should read it. Courting Kathleen Hannigan put that suspicion to rest once and for all, because I hated this book.
Courting Kathleen Hannigan tells the story of Kitty, a smart and capable law school grad who starts practicing at a large Chicago law firm in the mid-1970s and is one of the few women to make partner. Not coincidentally, Courting Kathleen Hannigan was written by a lawyer who started practicing at a large Chicago law firm in the mid-1970s and was one of the few women to make partner at the time. Kitty's years at the firm are interspersed with her trial testimony when she is called adversely in a sex discrimination lawsuit brought by a star female denied partnership for not being feminine enough. (Loosely based on the Hopkins v PwC case that many law students will know.)
I have no doubt that some or all of the events that happened in the book (e.g., being hit on and groped by drunk male partners) happened to the author or someone she knew. Some of these things, unfortunately, are not merely relics of the 70s and 80s but continue to happen today. These things are the types of things I and my like-minded lawyer friends combat and rail against. This book, in other words, was right. up. my. alley.
And, yet, I hated this book.
Kitty lacked... not personality, not exactly. But her motivation for making various life choices seemed random and nonsensical. As just one example, at one point, a co-worker proclaims he would like to marry her, and she eventually accepts for no apparent reason that I could discern.
So, if I hated this book, why two stars? Two reasons.
First, we read this book as part of my firm's women's initiative, and the author came to speak at our discussion. She was lovely. She was fascinating. Her anecdotes about things that actually happened were leaps and bounds better than this book. And I guess I can't give one star to someone I have met, who I looked in the eye, and whose company I enjoyed.
Second, Reed wrote a book. More than that--she's a lawyer who wrote novels. I'm a lawyer, and all I've ever written is like 2.5 pages in a notebook somewhere. And while this rationale literally applies to every author, I choose to save it for the lawyer-writers, 'cause there's something to be said for those who can write all day for a job and then go home and write for fun.
Courting Kathleen Hannigan tells the story of Kitty, a smart and capable law school grad who starts practicing at a large Chicago law firm in the mid-1970s and is one of the few women to make partner. Not coincidentally, Courting Kathleen Hannigan was written by a lawyer who started practicing at a large Chicago law firm in the mid-1970s and was one of the few women to make partner at the time. Kitty's years at the firm are interspersed with her trial testimony when she is called adversely in a sex discrimination lawsuit brought by a star female denied partnership for not being feminine enough. (Loosely based on the Hopkins v PwC case that many law students will know.)
I have no doubt that some or all of the events that happened in the book (e.g., being hit on and groped by drunk male partners) happened to the author or someone she knew. Some of these things, unfortunately, are not merely relics of the 70s and 80s but continue to happen today. These things are the types of things I and my like-minded lawyer friends combat and rail against. This book, in other words, was right. up. my. alley.
And, yet, I hated this book.
Kitty lacked... not personality, not exactly. But her motivation for making various life choices seemed random and nonsensical. As just one example, at one point, a co-worker proclaims he would like to marry her, and she eventually accepts for no apparent reason that I could discern.
So, if I hated this book, why two stars? Two reasons.
First, we read this book as part of my firm's women's initiative, and the author came to speak at our discussion. She was lovely. She was fascinating. Her anecdotes about things that actually happened were leaps and bounds better than this book. And I guess I can't give one star to someone I have met, who I looked in the eye, and whose company I enjoyed.
Second, Reed wrote a book. More than that--she's a lawyer who wrote novels. I'm a lawyer, and all I've ever written is like 2.5 pages in a notebook somewhere. And while this rationale literally applies to every author, I choose to save it for the lawyer-writers, 'cause there's something to be said for those who can write all day for a job and then go home and write for fun.
September 15, 2016
I won a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
I enjoyed this book. It is an interesting story of the integration of women lawyers into a large, conservative law firm. The story is a bit dated but still gives a good representation of how difficult it is to change corporate culture. I really like Kathleen and her struggles to reconcile her ambitions with her sense of fairness and integrity. She is a complex character that seems real as do most of the secondary figures in the story. There is also a nice low key romance that adds to the plot.
All in all, an entertaining and quick read.
I enjoyed this book. It is an interesting story of the integration of women lawyers into a large, conservative law firm. The story is a bit dated but still gives a good representation of how difficult it is to change corporate culture. I really like Kathleen and her struggles to reconcile her ambitions with her sense of fairness and integrity. She is a complex character that seems real as do most of the secondary figures in the story. There is also a nice low key romance that adds to the plot.
All in all, an entertaining and quick read.
March 11, 2020
Great book. I liked that the main character Kathleen/Kitty was at times likeable and other times not. It made it more real to me. This book is great for young female lawyers but also reaches way beyond that - any lawyer (young and old) could benefit from a read, and certainly any young woman trying to climb the corporate ladder should read this. I think this should be required reading in law schools and womens studies programs. It certainly made me more aware that while we have come a long way, there are miles to go.
April 5, 2013
Interesting take on the complexities behind women trying to rise to the level of partner at a law firm. As the protagonist learns, there is no simple formula, no one way to earn your keep in the culture of competitive law firms, no matter how good you are. Doesn't oversimplify the issue, but rather shows the diverse avenues that women in the position can experience, depending on their character and approach.
Want to read
April 30, 2008planning on purchasing this book for a book signing/author meet & greet on May 6th. from the reviews i've read so far it has my attention.
June 23, 2008
A great read for any female lawyer. Also a quick read.
August 22, 2012
It was okay...themes a little dated.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews