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Interview with Eve W. Paul

IntervieweeInterview with Eve W. Paul American, 1930 - 2016

InterviewerInterviewed by Jeremy R. Paul American, born 1956

Date2007 September 12

DimensionsDuration: 1 Hour, 3 Minutes

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineGift of the Connecticut Bar Foundation

DescriptionOral history interview with Eve W. Paul who was interviewed by Jeremy R. Paul on September 12, 2007 for the Connecticut Bar Foundation's History of Connecticut Women in the Legal Profession Project.

Topics Discussed:

- Background and Early Life: Eve Paul was born in New York City in 1930. Her mother was from Kiev, Russia, and her father from Leipzig, Germany. Her father established a fur business branch in New York in 1925, and they were fortunate to escape the Holocaust as a Jewish family.

- Early Education: Eve attended New York City public schools.

- Higher Education: She attended Cornell University and Columbia Law School. She started at Cornell in 1946. A Constitutional Law course with Professor Robert Cushman at Cornell influenced her decision to go to law school. She also worked on the Cornell Daily Sun, serving as editorial director and Associate Editor.

- Law School: After one year at Cornell Law School, she transferred to Columbia Law School in 1952, where she was accepted onto the Law Review. Eve focused on business law courses rather than those specifically related to women, aiming to do the same work as men due to existing prejudice.

- Early Career in Law : After graduating in 1952, Eve passed the Bar Exam on her first attempt. She faced significant difficulty finding her first job, being rejected by 25 law firms. She eventually secured a job at Hays, Wolf, Schwabacher, Sklar & Epstein through a friend. Her initial work involved preparing memos on tiny aspects of cases, with no clinical training in law school. She then worked briefly for a securities lawyer, Bernard Cahn, before becoming pregnant.

- Gender Discrimination: Her employer found a pregnant woman lawyer unacceptable, leading to her departure.

- Move to Connecticut and Independent Practice : Eve married in April 1952, just before graduating from law school. In 1958, she and her family moved to Stamford, Connecticut.
She established her own law practice, renting space from friends Paul Shapero and James Bingham, who later became judges in Connecticut. Her practice involved wills, real estate closings, and matrimonial law.

- Political and Legal Involvements: She became involved in the North Stamford Democratic Club, ran unsuccessfully for the State Legislature against Hilda Clark, and was appointed to the Planning Board.

- First Women's Bank of Connecticut : Eve Paul co-founded the First Women's Bank of Connecticut in Greenwich with Lois Sontag and other women. Research for establishing the bank revealed significant difficulties women faced in obtaining loans, mortgages, or even charge accounts. The bank operated for several years.

- Return to New York and Work at Legal Aid Society : In 1970, Eve and her family moved back to New York City because her mother became ill, requiring Eve to be closer as an only child. Her first job back in New York was with the Legal Aid Society's Children's Division, representing juveniles charged with delinquency or PINS (Persons In Need of Supervision).

- Planned Parenthood and Reproductive Rights Advocacy: After leaving Legal Aid, Eve was directed by the Columbia Placement Office to a job opening related to Planned Parenthood. She joined a study commissioned by the Department of Health Education and Welfare researching birth control laws in all fifty states. This work took place just before Roe v. Wade. After the study, Harriet Pilpel, a senior partner at Greenbaum, Wolf & Ernst and general counsel for Planned Parenthood, hired Eve to work at her law firm. Eve worked on amicus briefs for Planned Parenthood related to Roe v. Wade. Around 1978, she transitioned to working directly for Planned Parenthood full-time, initially as the only lawyer on staff, building up a legal team. She handled corporate matters like contracts and trademark issues. Eve was at Planned Parenthood for 25 years.

Object number2024.38.30a-k

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)