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In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate
A champion of women’s rights reflects on her illustrious career litigating groundbreaking cases on reproductive rights, sexual harassment, and violence against women
In the boys’ club climate of 1975, Nancy Gertner launched her career fighting a murder charge on behalf of antiwar activist Susan Saxe, one of the few women to ever make the FBI’s Most Wanted List. What followed was a storied span of groundbreaking firsts, as Gertner threw herself into criminal and civil cases focused on women’s rights and civil liberties.
Gertner writes, for example, about representing Clare Dalton, the Harvard Law professor who famously sued the school after being denied tenure, and of being one of the first lawyers to introduce evidence of Battered Women’s Syndrome in a first-degree murder defense. She writes about the client who sued her psychiatrist after he had sexually preyed on her, and another who sued her employers at Merrill Lynch—she had endured strippers and penis-shaped cakes in the office, but the wildly skewed distribution of clients took professional injury too far. All of these were among the first cases of their kind.
Gertner brings her extensive experience to bear on issues of long-standing importance the general evolution of thought regarding women and fetuses as legally separate entities, possibly at odds; the fungible definition of rape and the rights of both the accused and the victim; ever-changing workplace attitudes and policies around women and minorities; the concept of abetting crime.
“With wit, heart, and honesty, Gertner . . . looks back on the decades just after feminism’s Third Wave, when issues like abortion for poor women, shield laws for rape victims, ‘battered wife syndrome,’ and the rights of lesbians to adopt children were unconventional, to say the least.”
—Renee Loth, The Boston Globe
“This is a fascinating memoir of a life lived in the law with passion, guts, humor, and great skill.”
—Linda Greenhouse, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and author of Before Roe v. Wade
In the boys’ club climate of 1975, Nancy Gertner launched her career fighting a murder charge on behalf of antiwar activist Susan Saxe, one of the few women to ever make the FBI’s Most Wanted List. What followed was a storied span of groundbreaking firsts, as Gertner threw herself into criminal and civil cases focused on women’s rights and civil liberties.
Gertner writes, for example, about representing Clare Dalton, the Harvard Law professor who famously sued the school after being denied tenure, and of being one of the first lawyers to introduce evidence of Battered Women’s Syndrome in a first-degree murder defense. She writes about the client who sued her psychiatrist after he had sexually preyed on her, and another who sued her employers at Merrill Lynch—she had endured strippers and penis-shaped cakes in the office, but the wildly skewed distribution of clients took professional injury too far. All of these were among the first cases of their kind.
Gertner brings her extensive experience to bear on issues of long-standing importance the general evolution of thought regarding women and fetuses as legally separate entities, possibly at odds; the fungible definition of rape and the rights of both the accused and the victim; ever-changing workplace attitudes and policies around women and minorities; the concept of abetting crime.
“With wit, heart, and honesty, Gertner . . . looks back on the decades just after feminism’s Third Wave, when issues like abortion for poor women, shield laws for rape victims, ‘battered wife syndrome,’ and the rights of lesbians to adopt children were unconventional, to say the least.”
—Renee Loth, The Boston Globe
“This is a fascinating memoir of a life lived in the law with passion, guts, humor, and great skill.”
—Linda Greenhouse, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and author of Before Roe v. Wade
298 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
26 people are currently reading
218 people want to read
About the author
Nancy Gertner
6 books6 followersNancy Gertner was appointed a Federal District Judge by President Clinton in 1997 and serves on the bench for the District of Massachusetts. A graduate of Barnard College and Yale Law School, she has taught at Yale Law School, Boston College Law School, Boston University School of Law, and Harvard Law School.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
August 1, 2011
Okay, I have a new heroine, and her name is Nancy Gertner. I have never in my life wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer, but she made it sound incredibly rewarding, AND she did tons of civil rights work too, AND was appointed to the federal bench.
In the preface, Gertner talks about a panel that she and Sonia Sotomayor both sat on in the late 90s, where they were asked about how one became a judge. This is one of my new favorite passages of all time, slightly paraphrased for brevity:
Sotomayor: You graduate with a stellar record. You work as a prosecutor in the celebrated Manhattan DA's office. You take care not to be publicly associated with controversial issues. You demonstrate that you can be a neutral, temperate jurist.
Gertner: You graduate with a stellar record. Then, you represent the first lesbian, feminist, radical, anti-Vietnam War activist accused of killing a police officer you can find. You take every abortion case in Massachusetts; you speak out on the major hot-button issues of the day on television or in the editorial pages of the newspapers. You represent defendants of all stripes, from those in political corruption cases to high-profile murder cases, and for the final coup de grace, you marry the legal director of the state ACLU office. In short, do everything that in this epoch of strident judicial politics should disqualify you for the position.
Awesome.
In the preface, Gertner talks about a panel that she and Sonia Sotomayor both sat on in the late 90s, where they were asked about how one became a judge. This is one of my new favorite passages of all time, slightly paraphrased for brevity:
Sotomayor: You graduate with a stellar record. You work as a prosecutor in the celebrated Manhattan DA's office. You take care not to be publicly associated with controversial issues. You demonstrate that you can be a neutral, temperate jurist.
Gertner: You graduate with a stellar record. Then, you represent the first lesbian, feminist, radical, anti-Vietnam War activist accused of killing a police officer you can find. You take every abortion case in Massachusetts; you speak out on the major hot-button issues of the day on television or in the editorial pages of the newspapers. You represent defendants of all stripes, from those in political corruption cases to high-profile murder cases, and for the final coup de grace, you marry the legal director of the state ACLU office. In short, do everything that in this epoch of strident judicial politics should disqualify you for the position.
Awesome.
Read
June 3, 2023“And later when my pregnancy was more noticeable, I particularly loved to rub my belly and moan softly. It seemed only fair. Clarence Darrow was fabled to put wire in his cigar (when you were allowed to smoke in court), so that the ash would linger and linger without falling off.”
“Suddenly, a group of kids, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, approached. One ran up to me, grabbed at my breasts and ran away. The group erupted in laughter. In that moment, by that seemingly trivial gesture, I was reduced to my anatomy.”
“Suddenly, a group of kids, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, approached. One ran up to me, grabbed at my breasts and ran away. The group erupted in laughter. In that moment, by that seemingly trivial gesture, I was reduced to my anatomy.”
April 30, 2020
Interesting read written by a woman who was one of the first on the front line in women's advocacy. A reminder that in the 1960's there was no protective measures in place to protect women's rights, no Roe vs Wade, the ERA was in its infancy.
May 21, 2021
This one took me a while to finish just because I had to put it down and walk out my indignation. Great insight into the changes one woman has seen over the course of a brilliant career.
August 25, 2021
I will admit she has accomplished a lot and is a remarkable woman but I found the book to be dull.
May 22, 2022
an interesting and informative read, and so reassuring to know that there are people like this out there in the world.
July 30, 2023
Really captivating- loved how she wrote the book chunked by major cases she tried. Slowed down a bit at the end, hence the 4 stars
August 11, 2024
Loved this memoir by stellar judge, now HLS Prof, Nancy Gertner, about the many cases in which she fought for equality and fairness. I remembered some of the headlines from Boston in the 80s and 90s. This book made me even prouder to be a defense attorney.
June 18, 2012
I'm surprised that the average rating (3.78 at present) for this book isn't higher; I'm also surprised that the lower-rating readers haven't included any commentary.
In the last six months, I've attended two events where Judge Gertner was a speaker, so a number of the anecdotes were not new to me. Even so, it was hard to put this book down. It's not shocking that she writes clearly and draws the reader into the story: those skills have made her the lawyer she is. I especially liked that she tells many of these vignettes in such a way that you want to know how the case ends up, but without manipulating the reader into feeling the suspense. She doesn't employ any of the clichés of courtroom drama, or oversimplify or mischaracterize legal doctrine, that you sometimes see in writing about the law for lay audiences. This is a book that lawyers (probably experienced ones, and certainly green ones like myself) can really appreciate.
I find myself feeling a bit conflicted about how she writes about family, from both the doctrinal and personal angles. She is honest about how her desire for a spouse and family surprised her and how she was surprised to find one. She is also honest about the modesty of her expectations for family life: she loves her work and, except for when her children are very young, most of the child-rearing falls to a nanny. She doesn't claim to be especially close to her children, though she loves them and is grateful for them, and she seems content with this. Fair enough; I don't know how well society might work if everyone made the same choice, but I don't have the standing to criticize her own decision. At the same time, her own story doesn't quite fit her pro-choice theory. Briefly, she argues that abortion rights are necessary because women must have the right to define their role as something other than mother, or as not-mother. This type of idea is what you see in Justice Kennedy's opinion in Planned Parenthood of Southeast PA v. Casey and elsewhere. But that begs a couple of questions. What does it mean for a woman to have the mother role? When can she claim it? When can she be said to have it, whether she claimed it or not (if not at her child's conception)? And if she can willingly claim the role as a largely absent mother, molding the role to fit her other values and priorities, what does it mean to not want any form of the role? This is not to say that the pro-life side of this argument is perfectly cohesive, at least as it is typically expressed, but her account brings out an interesting inconsistency.
In the last six months, I've attended two events where Judge Gertner was a speaker, so a number of the anecdotes were not new to me. Even so, it was hard to put this book down. It's not shocking that she writes clearly and draws the reader into the story: those skills have made her the lawyer she is. I especially liked that she tells many of these vignettes in such a way that you want to know how the case ends up, but without manipulating the reader into feeling the suspense. She doesn't employ any of the clichés of courtroom drama, or oversimplify or mischaracterize legal doctrine, that you sometimes see in writing about the law for lay audiences. This is a book that lawyers (probably experienced ones, and certainly green ones like myself) can really appreciate.
I find myself feeling a bit conflicted about how she writes about family, from both the doctrinal and personal angles. She is honest about how her desire for a spouse and family surprised her and how she was surprised to find one. She is also honest about the modesty of her expectations for family life: she loves her work and, except for when her children are very young, most of the child-rearing falls to a nanny. She doesn't claim to be especially close to her children, though she loves them and is grateful for them, and she seems content with this. Fair enough; I don't know how well society might work if everyone made the same choice, but I don't have the standing to criticize her own decision. At the same time, her own story doesn't quite fit her pro-choice theory. Briefly, she argues that abortion rights are necessary because women must have the right to define their role as something other than mother, or as not-mother. This type of idea is what you see in Justice Kennedy's opinion in Planned Parenthood of Southeast PA v. Casey and elsewhere. But that begs a couple of questions. What does it mean for a woman to have the mother role? When can she claim it? When can she be said to have it, whether she claimed it or not (if not at her child's conception)? And if she can willingly claim the role as a largely absent mother, molding the role to fit her other values and priorities, what does it mean to not want any form of the role? This is not to say that the pro-life side of this argument is perfectly cohesive, at least as it is typically expressed, but her account brings out an interesting inconsistency.
July 7, 2011
As a lawyer, and a feminist, who also represents many of the same types of clients as Judge Gertner did, I absolutely loved this book. It was inspiring and insightful and, for many of the stories she related, brave. I particularly loved the chapter on her representation of an accused rapist and how she balanced her feminist sensibilities with her representation of a man she was convinced had not committed a crime. Having a criminal defense attorney as a father, and having struggled with wanting to be a defense attorney in law school (and ultimately rejecting that path), I truly appreciated her thoughts on this case.
Her story about how she balances work and family is also interesting--she does not pretend to "have it all" but she makes sure she has what is most important to her in her work life and family life.
This is a must read for feminist lawyers, particularly those who represent women who are discriminated against. The chapter on how she spent her first year losing really spoke to me because I have had a lot of career disappointments of late. I was inspired to continue to move forward.
Her story about how she balances work and family is also interesting--she does not pretend to "have it all" but she makes sure she has what is most important to her in her work life and family life.
This is a must read for feminist lawyers, particularly those who represent women who are discriminated against. The chapter on how she spent her first year losing really spoke to me because I have had a lot of career disappointments of late. I was inspired to continue to move forward.
August 28, 2011
I liked it. It wasn't a "must read" although, I've heard Judge Gertner speak and she really is a must listen to. The content of this book was great. Her story was interesting and she done a lot of interesting work, the delivery just could have been a little better. The first few chapters were cohesive but the last few felt a little rushed. I can see where it would be hard to fit all of her amazing stories into 250 short pages though, so I don't fault the author too much.
June 15, 2014
Such a great memoir of Judge Gertner's legal career, in which she was dedicated to advocating on behalf of women in a variety of areas - criminal, employment and sex discrimination, and other civil realms. She's such a rockstar. I heard Judge Gertner speak in 2013 and found her very compelling and that comes across in these pages as well! So encouraging for someone committed to advocacy and public service!
July 14, 2011
A really enjoyable book. Each chapter focused on a different stage in Judge Gertner's life and a different case she’s handled, which served as the focal point for a primer on that area of law. So there were chapters on abortion rights, employment discrimination, rape, faculty discrimination, etc. A very quick read and entertaining as far as non-fiction goes.
July 29, 2012
I enjoyed reading Gertner's memoir. She effectively argues how the law can support equal opportunities for women. Additionally she discusses cases where women were exploited in the workplace, in therapuetic settings and in education. Recommended for anyone interested in learning about women and the law.
December 16, 2011
I really enjoyed this one. Very interesting reading about the experiences of a female attorney in Boston in the 1970s - things have changed so much since then!
February 15, 2013
Empowering and insightful. If I attain half the legal career she has advocating for people I will deem that a success. Loved this book!
July 31, 2014
Really enjoyable.
March 25, 2013
An inspiring look at Nancy Gertner's life as a defense attorney who focused on civil rights issues, particularly those pertaining to women.
July 17, 2016
Seriously - if you like courtroom drama and kick-ass babes - this book is great. Had to read it for a class and am glad I did. Fascinating, funny, and candid.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews