In April 2001, I was fortunate to be invited to the ABA Summit on Women & Leadership, held at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. My long-time friend and mentor, Martha Barnett, was the ABA President at the time. In conjunction with Professors Deborah Rhode, then Chair of the ABA Commission on Women, and Professor Judith Resnik of the Yale Law School, Martha had organized the Summit to take a close look at the empirical and experiential data about women in the legal profession. Many of the generation of women who began their legal careers coincident with the women's movement of the 1960s and 1970's, had assumed leadership roles within law and legal academia. But the numbers did not bode well for widespread assumption of leadership within the profession and the Summit brought together one-hundred women to examine why.

During the meeting, Judith Resnik spoke to some of us who were in academia about her vision of beginning fellowship programs at American law schools. The aim of the programs would be an effort to train and graduate law students who were aware of the political history and doctrinal development in the area of gender equality. This cadre of young women (and hopefully some men) would be better prepared to assume the leadership roles within the movement that were going to be left open by women of the prior generation who were reaching retirement age. Such fellowship programs would also foster research in gender equality and leadership and might include chaired professorships in their structure.

I had just begun my visit at the University of Maryland, on leave from my faculty position at Southwestern University, when I heard Professor Resnik's plan at the Summit. I brought the idea back to the triumvirate of women deans at Maryland, Dean Karen Rothenberg, and Associate Deans Jana Singer and Diane Hoffmann. They were enthusiastic about the idea and thought that Maryland, with its commitment to gender equality and a number of accomplished women alumni who were already leaders in the profession, would be a very good place to start such a program. We submitted a proposal to the Marjorie Cook Foundation in Baltimore, a foundation committed to working for women's equality, and they gave us a $250,000 grant to fund the program.

We designed the program to be a two-year experience for students who would take a theoretical seminar in Women & Leadership or a doctrinal seminar in Women & the Law in their second year. The would then become Fellows in the Fall of their third year and do an externship at an organization committed to women's issues, like the National Women's Law Center. This externship would be accompanied by a classroom component where they would share their experiences.

I designed and taught the seminar in leadership this Spring and it was fully enrolled. I have attached a copy of the syllabus that I developed, which focuses on developing in the students a conceptual framework in leadership theory. The course has been very well received by the students. They have not only developed an awareness of current theories of leadership but have been exposed to the structural barriers that they will face as members of the legal profession. Such awareness, they feel, has made them better prepared to cope with those barriers and to develop strategies around them. As always, knowing that you are not the only one experiencing resistance can be very helpful in being persistent in one's goals. Many faculty have participated by teaching segments of the seminar as well. This participation and the integration of faculty scholarship into the syllabus has made the students more aware of faculty members who can be mentors and advisors during their law school experience.

In addition to the student component, the program also aims to foster research by faculty and to act as a mechanism by which faculty work can be publicized and disseminated. This synergistic role of the program has already begun with several faculty teaching segments of the seminar this Spring. The student fellows will also act as research assistants to faculty who want to write in this area and they will assist faculty in putting on an annual symposium - this year it was a panel discussion on Title IX and Women's Athletics, co-sponsored by the Women's Bar Association at the law school and MARGINS, the law school's Journal on Race, Religion, Gender & Class.

We also hope that the program will bring women alumni back to the law school to participate in various ways. We already have had several judges, practitioners and women in business speak to the seminar students. A valuable byproduct of this integration of alumni into the seminar may be to increase interest in and financial support of the law school by such alumni.

Our hope at Maryland is that more law schools will develop such programs. We would be pleased to share our experience with others. If we graduate ten law students per year for the next ten years who are equipped intellectually and emotionally to carry on the struggle, then we will have contributed one-hundred lawyers prepared to fill the shoes of the women leaders who have come before. If we can encourage even nine other law schools to do the same, America's law schools can train one-thousand lawyers in the next ten years to assume those leadership roles and to continue the progress of the last generation.

¹ Paula A. Monopoli graduated with from Yale University in 1980 and from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1983. She is a Professor of Law at Southwestern University School of Law and a Visiting Professor of Law and Director of the WLE Program at the University of Maryland School of Law.
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