(The following appeared in National Law Journal in 1992.)

Women on Top in Florida Law

By Bob Andelman

Within two weeks, the positions of both chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court and president-elect of the Florida Bar Association went to women for the first time. And women judges claimed a first on the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, as well.

Justice Rosemary Barkett, 52, a native Mexican who grew up in Miami and later served several years in a convent, was elected to the top judicial seat in the sunshine state on March 10. She succeeds outgoing Chief Justice Leander Shaw in July.

"I hope that the way women in our field - and in other fields - have comported ourselves, that we are not surprised that women are capable of holding leadership positions," says Barkett. "More and more women have entered the profession and more and more women are recognizing the need to participate in positions where policy is being made."

Barkett says that while women are making strides in the male-dominated legal profession, the struggle is not over yet. "Men are becoming more accepting, let's put it that way," she says. "I don't anticipate any difficulties that would be gender related. But call me in a year."

Miami attorney Patricia A. Seitz, 45, says out-of-state members put her over the top in a close March 24 vote for the presidency of the Florida Bar. The Steel, Hector & Davis partner campaigned in five states in addition to Florida to win a narrow victory over John Edwin Fisher of Orlando.

"It feels very sweet," says Seitz. "It was a dream. My mentor, Darrey Davis, was president in 1954; he had a profound affect on me."

Seitz, who mapped her campaign strategy after conferring with other women in Bar leadership positions around the country, was still surprised by the ferocity of the campaign trail. "It was an opportunity to grow and stretch and learn the games my mother never taught me," she says, "including when someone throws a punch, you take the punch and give one back. ... Women have to project several things. One is that you can stand up and fight if need be. But it has to be in a confident manner, rather than as a brawler."

Another first for women occured on March 17 in Cincinnati, Ohio, when Judge Cornelia G. Kennedy, Judge Alice Batchelder and Judge Anna Diggs Taylor convened the first all-female, three-judge panel on the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. They knew immediately that it was a special moment.

"In a number of circuits, you couldn't do it," she says. "We did have a picture of ourselves taken for our scrapbooks. It's a milestone. We've got to recognize milestones."