From Sweetie to Sisterhood: A Public Defender’s Listening Session Reflection

In our office and in our courtrooms, I have received many offensive remarks from lawyers and judges, including:

“That b**** walks around here like she owns the place.”

“Why can’t you just have the baby and come right back to working like those field women do?”

“You have to stop challenging me and then I’ll stop yelling at you.”

“You’re standing here working while pregnant; why can’t your client?”

But it’s not just the disrespectful and clueless comments. Nothing has ever been as difficult as defending a client’s freedom and liberty while balancing a newborn’s cluster feeds or an infant’s sleep regression. I have never felt as threatened by a client as I have by a male boss who screamed and slammed the desk and cursed at me. I have never been more traumatized than watching mothers being physically peeled away from their babies as they are arrested and sentenced. It’s not the clients that scare me. It’s trying to stop this system from ruining families while also trying to raise one of my own.

I did not realize how much I needed the ABA’s Criminal Justice Section Women in Criminal Justice Task Force listening session until I attended one in Tallahassee in 2020. To be surrounded by so many brilliant advocates from so many different backgrounds, ages, and ethnicities was an amazing experience. To hear every story of courage, bravery, and struggle and see the success and empowerment on the other end was incredibly inspiring.

The shared experiences of the women on the panel brought us together in a profound way. Sisterhood and solidarity in such a niche area of the law—criminal defense, indigent criminal defense at that—highlighted not only how important our work was, but, also, how hard everyone was working to fix this broken criminal legal system.

We shared the standard experiences—ones that most female attorneys endure in the courtroom and the office: sexual harassment, dismissiveness, dirty jokes, questions about our competency, personal attacks, etc. When we thought the comments could not get any worse, someone else would speak up and we would all shake our heads in disgust.

We also saw how everyone pressed on because of their duty to their clients and the respect they have for our work. We took every snarky comment from opposing counsel and turned it into a winning closing argument. We stood up for our deserved pay raise and advocated for the promotion. For some of us, we took a terrifying leap to run for office, and we made it thanks to the support of friends and colleagues who cheered for us along the way. The listening session was not only a glimpse into what we have all gone through, but also how we have all succeeded in spite of the challenges.

We also spoke openly about personal struggles outside of the courtroom. How do you hold sobbing mothers as their children are taken away and then get in the car to go pick up your own? How do you explain the injustice and disparity in our system to your children? What lessons do you teach your kids about their interactions with law enforcement? How do you show up for clients every day and do your very best work when you are literally functioning on four hours of sleep? How do you defend clients accused of sexually motivated crimes while also advocating for women’s rights and protections?

These struggles are the reality for so many of us in this practice, and it was powerful to have a safe space to share our stories. But what was truly incredible were the solutions that everyone proposed—the action steps we could, and would, all take to make things better.

We took huge leaps together. We sit among courageous women who challenged incumbents and won, who overturned laws that were unjust and prejudicial, who became the youngest person of color to earn a circuit judgeship, who created nursing rooms in courthouses and offices, and who led entire legal aid organizations committed to zealous representation. We are raising our children to be kind and accepting, but also to be leaders who challenge the status quo.

One of the most frustrating things we had all been told when suggesting new ideas or different strategies was, “Well, this is the way it’s always been done.” Every single woman in our sessions answered loudly with, “Well, not anymore.”

Do not call us honey or sweetie—call us Your Honor, call us Madame Public Defender, call us esteemed Counsel for the Defense. And, most importantly, to each other now, we can call one another our sisters.