Not a law firm in the entire city of New York bid for my employment as a lawyer when I earned my degree.
Ruth Bader GinsburgRead
I was tremendously fortunate to be alive and a lawyer, working at a university so I had more flexible hours, when the women's movement was coming alive and when it became possible to argue successfully for a view of the equal protection clause that included women.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the privilege of being alive during a pivotal moment in the fight for women's rights, highlighting the significance of flexible work environments and the legal framework for equality.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg expresses her gratitude for being a lawyer and part of the academic community during the emergence of the women's movement. She signifies how this period allowed for successful legal arguments concerning equal protection under the law for women, emphasizing the intersection of her profession and the socio-political progress of the time.
In practice
During a women's rights meeting, to emphasize the importance of legal advocacy.
Not a law firm in the entire city of New York bid for my employment as a lawyer when I earned my degree.
If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don't say, 'You don't know how to use the English language,' or 'How could you make that argument?' It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.
I try to teach through my opinions, through my speeches, how wrong it is to judge people on the basis of what they look like, color of their skin, whether they're men or women.
The worst times were the years I was alone. The image to the public entering the courtroom was eight men, of a certain size, and then this little woman sitting to the side. That was not a good image for the public to see.
A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom.
My resume showed membership on both the Harvard and Columbia Law Reviews, a credit impressive abroad where it was not generally known that Law Reviews were student-operated publications.
Those who consent to the act and those who do it shall be equally punished.
Fill the seats of justice with good men, not so absolute in goodness as to forget what human frailty is.
Supporters of capital punishment bear a special responsibility to ensure the fairness of this irreversible punishment.
It was clear to me as a civil rights leader in the '60s that unless we put the social and economic underpinnings beneath the political and the civil rights, we wouldn't go anywhere.
When law enforcement fails to fulfill its most basic duty to protect and serve its citizens, particularly members of a minority community, it not only tarnishes the badge we all wear, but erodes the trust that we in law enforcement have worked so hard to build.
The reasonableness of the agency of the national courts in cases in which the state tribunals cannot be supposed to be impartial, speaks for itself. No man ought certainly to be a judge in his own cause, or in any cause in respect to which he has the least interest or bias.
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