5 Key Teachings: LADY JUSTICE, by Dahlia Lithwick

Dahlia Lithwick’s Lady Justice moved me to tears multiple times: It’s a love letter to women (specifically lawyers) across the country who are engaged in an unceasing effort to both evolve and reform our judicial system. It is a reminder of all the tireless good in the world—and also a masterclass on topics that I didn’t fully understand, like the erosion of the Voting Rights Act and free speech. Highly recommend. As Lithwick writes: “Throughout the Trump years, women who were asking themselves, ‘What can I do?’ learned that whether we notice it or not, the law organizes every part of our lives. Lashing ourselves to legal ideas, movements, and causes gave us power. It organized us. It focused us. It connected us to first principles and lofty ideas. And every step of the way, the wins felt tangible and material and enduring. Women have come so far in a few decades, and the law, even with its flaws and its anachronisms, has been a quiet, persistent source of order and meaning in a world that feels ever more out of our control. It’s been a source of power beyond just rage. We have a long way to go, the road will be bumpy, and the destination still feels less than clear. But women plus law equals magic; we prove that every day. And bearing witness to what it can and will achieve has been the great privilege of my lifetime.”

5 KEY TEACHINGS:

1. We don’t need to wait for the next Ruth Bader Ginsburg: There are many women, already among us, working to evolve our institutions toward equity and justice. (And arguably there were many women who came before RBG too, like Pauli Murray, who didn’t get the same amount of credit.)

As Lithwick writes, “Like Clinton, they were women; like Clinton, they possessed law degrees; and like Clinton, they were simply unwilling to drift backward to a time when men made policy and women made dinner. Almost overnight that meant that armies of female lawyers and advocates—seemingly born for this precise moment—were galvanized and awakened before the Trump inauguration, and only deepened their engagement with the legal system in the weeks and months and years that followed. These women became equity partners in America’s sprawling, pop-up resistance law firm, each seeking to preserve freedoms that were under daily assault for the four years in which Donald Trump assured us all that he himself was above the law, and also that the law could be bent to harm those who thwarted him. More than anything, this soaring women’s legal resistance revealed, at least to me, that while we have all been waiting around despondently for Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s next iteration to rescue us, the RBG 2.0’s have been among us all along.”

2. That Mr. Roger’s precept—”Look for the helpers”—was on full display immediately after Trump’s Muslim ban, when three thousands lawyers signed rushed to airports to help.

As Lithwick reports: