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Interview with Susan Wolfson

IntervieweeInterview with Susan Wolfson American, 1938 - 2005

InterviewerInterviewed by Patricia R. Kaplan American, 1940 - 2021

Date2004 December 17

DimensionsDuration: 48 Minutes, 14 Seconds

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineGift of the Connecticut Bar Foundation

DescriptionOral history interview with Susan Wolfson who was interviewed by Patricia R. Kaplan on December 17, 2004 for the Connecticut Bar Foundation's History of Connecticut Women in the Legal Profession Project.

Topics Discussed:

- Personal Background: Susan Wolfson was born on May 2, 1938, in Brooklyn, New York. Her father was a civil engineer who graduated from Cornell in 1927, and her mother worked as a legal stenographer and interpreter.

- Influence: Her mother's experiences with an incident involving workplace harassment in the 1920s and 1930s at the U.S. District Attorney's Office, influenced Wolfson's interest in law and gender equity.

- College Years: Susan Wolfson graduated from Barnard College in 1959, where she studied economics and was the managing editor of the Barnard Bulletin.

- Early Career and Family Life: After graduating, she worked in economic research for Union Carbide, Celanese Corporation, and Sperry Hutchinson in New York. She stopped working when she moved to Boston with her husband. She later worked part-time at Harbridge House, a management consulting firm, in Boston. She had her second child in Boston. The family then moved to Texas for two years while her husband was in the Air Force, during which time she was not employed. They moved to New Haven, where her husband worked at Yale Medical School.

- Law School: At age 35, in 1974, she decided to go to law school after her cousin Nick Wolfson, then a professor at UConn Law School, suggested it. She enrolled at UConn in the fall of 1973.

- Family and Community Support for Law School: Her parents and husband were very supportive. However, the community was less supportive, with a school principal telling her that going to law school would "ruin" her son's life. UConn was accommodating by giving her an early class schedule to allow her to be home in the afternoons.

- Law School Experience: She graduated in 1976 from the first UConn law class with a significant number of women.

- Work During Law School and Bar Exam: She worked for Dick Jacobs and Sachs, Sachs, Delaney and Sachs in New Haven during her summers. In her third year, she worked for Senator Joe Lieberman, then the Senate Majority Leader of the Connecticut Senate, through a legislative clinic. She took and passed the bar exam in New Haven at Southern Connecticut.

- Post-Graduation Opportunities and Discrimination: Opportunities were limited after graduation. She faced offensive questions during interviews. One firm suggested she would not care about partnership because her husband was a doctor. She ultimately worked for Senator Lieberman's law firm due to her previous work with him.

- Work at Lieberman's Firm and Mentorship: At the firm, she handled various types of work, including collection, real estate, and some family law. She was initially the only woman in the firm.

Object number2024.38.21a-g

NotesProject Overview: At the turn of the 20th century, other than Mary Hall, women lawyers were virtually unknown in Connecticut. By contrast, at the turn of the 21st century, law schools were enrolling roughly the same number of women as men. Since their earliest time at the bar, women have become leaders in all areas of the profession at a pace out of all proportion to their brief history and number.

In 1999, the Fellows of the Connecticut Bar Foundation initiated the Oral History of Connecticut Women in the Legal Profession Project. Within the framework of this dynamic project, the Fellows have been creating a permanent video, audio, and photographic historical record of milestone achievements of women as they have become more visible and achieved prominence in the field of law. In 2019, a leadership donation of $20,000 from the law firm of Carmody Torrance Sandak & Hennessey enabled the project to significantly broaden its scope and plan for the future.

Through its first two phases, the project worked with award-winning documentarian Karyl Evans and attorney/photographer Isabel Chenoweth to produce fifty-eight oral history interviews with outstanding female attorneys and 118 portraits of women in the Connecticut judiciary.

The oral history interviews have collected the stories of women whose ingenuity, perseverance, and intelligence dismantled barriers that historically prevented women from pursuing careers in the law. Connecticut has benefited from the efforts of these “pioneers” as they enriched the legal profession by joining the ranks of their male peers and paved the way for more women to join the profession. (Source: Connecticut Bar Foundation)