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Interview with Elizabeth B. Leete

IntervieweeInterview with Elizabeth B. Leete American, 1933 - 2020

InterviewerInterviewed by Ann H. Rubin American

Date2016 December 8

DimensionsDuration: 9 Minutes, 19 Seconds

ClassificationsGraphics

Credit LineGift of the Connecticut Bar Foundation

DescriptionOral history interview with Elizabeth B. Leete who was interviewed by Ann H. Rubin on December 8, 2016 for the Connecticut Bar Foundation's History of Connecticut Women in the Legal Profession Project.

Topics Discussed:

- Early Life : Elizabeth B. Leete grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. Her father was a newspaper general manager, and her mother was a volunteer for the League of Women Voters and the United Nations.

- Early Career: Elizabeth attended Wellesley College, majoring in history. After marrying Harmon Leete, who attended Harvard Law School, she worked for the Christian Science Monitor and a public relations firm in Boston. Upon returning to Hartford, she worked at The Hartford Courant in the Circulation Department and then wrote for a column called "Shopping with Jacqueline." After retiring from the newspaper, she did freelance writing and became active in Black Sash.

- Law School: Elizabeth decided to go to law school, influenced by her friend Shelagh O'Neill and the Mountain Laurel decision in New Jersey. Elizabeth attended the University of Connecticut School of Law starting in 1972. She had a summer internship with Neighborhood Legal Services and later worked at Connecticut General as a legal intern.

- First Jobs: Elizabeth took the bar exam the summer after law school and later became a bar examiner. Her first job was clerking for Justice Alva Loiselle at the Connecticut Supreme Court. She then accepted a position at Ribicoff and Kotkin.

- Formation of First Women-Owned Law Firm: In 1980, Elizabeth, along with Shelagh O'Neill and Gale Kosto, formed their own all-women law firm, Leete, O'Neill and Kosto, which became the largest all-woman firm in Connecticut at the time.

- Immigration Law: Around 1990, the firm, Leete, O'Neill and Kosto, shifted its primary focus to immigration law.

- Evolution of the Firm : The firm is currently named Leete, Kosto and Wizner. The firm remains small.

- Women in the Legal Profession: Elizabeth observed significant changes for women in the legal profession over time, crediting "groundbreakers" like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor for changing the world.

Object number2024.38.50a-b

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)