Practicing Law with Trailblazers 79
Practicing Law with Trailblazers by Diane O’Leary Introduction My career in the law began in Dutchess County, New York, in 1977, not as a young woman fresh out of law school, but as a mother entering the workforce as a paralegal at age thirty-three. I worked for an established and respected attorney, Perry Satz, who had made a name for himself as the first local practitioner elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. He encouraged me to become an attorney which, under his tutelage, I eventually did. With two young children at home, I pursued an unconventional path, the study of law in a law office under the Rules of the Court of Appeals.1 Those rules permit one to sit for the bar examination after the successful completion of one year of law school followed by the study of law under an attorney for thirty-six months, a clerkship. After meeting those requirements, passing the bar examination, and satisfying the state’s character committee of my moral fitness and good repute, I was admitted to practice in 1984 at age thirty-nine. In those early paralegal years, there were but a few female practitioners in Dutchess County. I became familiar with two of them during my clerkship since Attorney Satz had many cases with them. He respected them and their work as did other members of the Bar. I looked forward to joining their ranks. While aware of their stellar reputations, I knew nothing then of their backgrounds or personal lives. Having benefited from their example, their high standards, professional and personal, and their talents, perseverance and character, I now tell their stories.
Charlotte M. Frank and Susanna E. Bedell, Women Lawyers as Trailblazers At the onset of my career at the Bar, attorneys Charlotte M. Frank (Figure 1) and Susanna E. Bedell (Figure 2) were already in their sixties and had reached the peaks of their careers. Over time I became familiar with them both, Susanna more than Charlotte as Susanna, who outlived Charlotte by sixteen years, attended some meetings of the Mid-Hudson Women’s Bar Association ( a chapter of the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York “ WBASNY”) while I was its president for two terms (1990-1992). I eventually had cases with both as they each practiced matrimonial law as
