The Houston Chronicle quoted Haynes and Boone, LLP Partner Lynne Liberato in a story about the first all-women panel of the Texas Supreme Court, specially appointed to hear a case in 1925: Hortense Sparks Ward, Hattie Leah Henenberg and Ruth Virginia Brazzil.
The paper reported that Texas made history for having the first all-woman high court in the country, just a few years after women won the right to vote. Gov. Pat Neff appointed the women after all three male Supreme Court justices recused themselves from a case involving Woodmen of the World, a fraternal organization to which they belonged, the paper reported. A portrait of the all-women court sits tucked in the back corner of the Texas Supreme Court, the report said.
“I can’t know what the significance of it was in 1925, but I do know that in 2017 I look at that picture and it’s exciting,” said Lynne Liberato, a partner at Haynes and Boone, LLP and the first woman president of the Houston Bar Association. “When I look at that picture of those women sitting on the bench, it is a visceral reaction to me. I feel proud of them, I feel good about being a woman lawyer.”
Excerpted from the Houston Chronicle. To read the full article, click here.
The story also ran in the San Antonio Express-News (Subscription required).