Through a life that spanned every decade of the twentieth century,
Supreme Court advocate Bessie Margolin shaped modern American labor
policy while creating a place for female lawyers in the nation's
highest courts. Despite her beginnings in an orphanage and her rare
position as a southern, Jewish woman pursuing a legal profession,
Margolin became an important and influential Supreme Court
advocate. In this comprehensive biography, Marlene Trestman reveals
the forces that propelled and the obstacles that impeded Margolin's
remarkable journey, illuminating the life of this trailblazing
woman. Raised in the Jewish Orphans' Home in New Orleans, Margolin
received an extraordinary education at the Isidore Newman Manual
Training School. Both institutions stressed that good citizenship,
hard work, and respect for authority could help people achieve
economic security and improve their social status. Adopting these
values, Margolin used her intellect and ambition, along with her
femininity and considerable southern charm, to win the respect of
her classmates, colleagues, bosses, and judges - almost all of whom
were men. In her career she worked with some of the most brilliant
legal professionals in America. A graduate of Tulane and Yale Law
Schools, Margolin launched her career in the early 1930s, when only
2 percent of America's attorneys were female, and far fewer were
Jewish and from the South. According to Trestman, Margolin worked
hard to be treated as ""one of the boys."" For the sake of her
career, she eschewed marriage - but not romance - and valued
collegial relationships, never shying from a late-night
brief-writing session or a poker game. But her personal
relationships never eclipsed her numerous professional
accomplishments, among them defending the constitutionality of the
New Deal's Tennessee Valley Authority, drafting rules establishing
the American military tribunals for Nazi war crimes in Nuremberg,
and, on behalf of the Labor Department, shepherding through the
courts the child labor, minimum wage, and overtime protections of
the Fair labor Standards Act of 1938. A founding member of that
National organisation for Women, Margolin culminated her government
service as a champion of the Equal Pay Act, arguing and winning the
first appeals. Margolin's passion for her work and focus on
meticulous preparation resulted in an outstanding record in
appellate advocacy, both in number of cases and rate of success. By
prevailing in 21 of her 24 Supreme Court arguments Margolin shares
the elite company of only a few dozen women and men who attained
such high standing as Supreme Court advocates.
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