Delaware Supreme Court Justice Karen Valihura took part in the national Women in Litigation Conference sponsored by the American Bar Association in Philadelphia recently.
Justice Valihura says the discussion was focused on talking about the progress women have made in litigation.
Justice Valihura says looking over time at members who have been in the Delaware Bar for 40 years or more, the percentage that are women is only 3.2-percent.
“And our particular panel was comprised of judges and we were providing the audience with an overview of statistics of kind of where women sit, as a percentage of the various benches,” said Valihura.
Delaware was one of the last states, if not the last state, to admit women to its state bar.
In fact, the first woman was finally admitted in 1923. And Delaware didn't appoint it's first woman judge until 1971 when Roxana Cannon-Arsht, who was only, the fifth woman to be admitted to the bar in Delaware, became the first to hold a judicial position in the state's history.
The conference theme this year by the way was “Leading for Success in the Courtroom, the Judiciary and in the Profession.”
Justice Valihura was sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court in July 2014.
