Society Girls
The Federalist Society is more than just a group of pudgy white men in dark suits.

By Melissa Seckora, NR editorial associate. Miss Seckora is a former deputy director of The Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Studies.
May 18, 2001 9:20 a.m.

f you thought conservative women were an endangered species, chances are you've given up all hope for

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conservative women lawyers. Do such women even exist? They do, thanks to the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Studies — the same influential outfit which the Washington Monthly called a "conservative cabal."

When the Federalist Society was established almost twenty years ago, the idea of limited government could barely get a shake in the legal community, not to mention in public discourse. At the same time, many on the Left were arguing that women weren't getting a fair shake, either. This wasn't so at the Federalist Society, where one of its co-founders was a woman by the name of Lee Liberman Otis. Ms. Otis is now general counsel to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Women are major players in the organization because it encourages its members to freely decide for themselves what to think, encouraging open and civil debate. Interior Secretary Gale Norton, UVA Law Professor Lillian BeVier, California Judge Lois Haight, former Deputy Attorney General Carol Dinkins, Hershey Corporation Senior Counsel Tammy McCutchen, and NFL counsel Jodi Balsam are just a handful of the many, highly talented women who mastered their legal chops at the Society.

"The Federalist Society represents true diversity of ideas," Jodi Balsam told NRO. Ms. Balsam helped co-found the Federalist Society's student chapter at NYU Law School in 1984 — a time when conservative and libertarian voices were even more quiescent on college campuses than they are today. "It just wasn't done. It was almost considered tactless or rude to speak out against the liberal orthodoxy," explained Ms. Balsam.

As a New York attorney, she was glad to learn there are more conservative women than she once thought working in corporate America. "Society girls" like Balsam see the value in limited government, reduced taxes, and a government that does not discriminate. "The fatal flaw of liberal policies is that it's only the government that gains power." Conservative women, she says, understand the sense of empowerment that comes from believing in the principles of limited government. They fear a nanny state that swoops into their private lives, telling them how to rear their children, how to practice their faith, and how to shape a home.

Lillian BeVier, who serves on the Federalist Society's Board of Visitors, first became involved in the organization in 1992, just before President Clinton took office. She had been waiting for a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on her nomination to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. She never got her hearing, but she did become more interested in the debate on judges and whether they should be charged with making policy, or interpreting laws. She was attracted to the Federalist Society because it is a group that believes that all viewpoints should be presented. She says she wouldn't be supportive of the Federalist Society if it didn't "genuinely support, believe in, and advocate open debate." As a faculty advisor to UVA's Federalist Society student chapter, she's noticed that her students are politically engaged and that they represent a wide range of conservative thought. "I value this about my conservative law students. I have no objection to liberal students, but they are much less engaged in their political debates. And, it is a terrible thing when students are precluded from ever being presented with the other sides of the debate."

Before becoming senior counsel at the Hershey Corporation, Tammy McCutchen served as a Federalist Society student chapter president at Northwestern Law School, and later served as president of the Chicago lawyers' chapter. In her experience with the Federalist Society, she's encountered nothing but a tremendous welcome and respect for ideas. Panel discussions have always been balanced, fostering "the smartest, most vigorous debates." "How do you know you are right if you don't know all the arguments on the other side?" she asks. Of course, with so many points of view to behold, she has encountered some extremists every once in a while, but this is par for the course. The Federalist Society, she says, has "never been exclusionary."

In San Francisco, the number of women participating in Federalist Society events has been steadily increasing, said Mary Neumayr, the president of the city's local chapter. Program guests have included distinguished judges, including Edith Jones of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and California Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown. "The Federalist Society promotes programs that seek to have the most distinguished, capable advocates on both sides of fundamental legal issues present and participating." Unlike today's law schools, the Society places a premium on presenting all sides of an argument. No wonder Society girls are such fierce advocates for their clients.