Watch the Book Talk: In Defense of Women - Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate

Judge Nancy Gertner, who now presides over court cases for the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, recalls her struggle to succeed personally and professionally while working on benchmark cases during the 1970s here.  She defended clients in some of the most prominent criminal and civil rights cases of the time, including a woman suing the psychiatrist who had repeatedly molested her; another on trial for murdering her abusive husband; Teresa Contardo, suing Merrill Lynch for discrimination; and Clare Dalton, suing Harvard Law School for the same offense.  All the while, Gertner drove home the point that women lawyers belonged in our courtrooms.

Panel discussion included Dennis Curtis, Linda Greenhouse, Judith Resnik, Reva Siegel and Kate Stith.