UC Berkeley’s Herma Hill Kay, 1st woman to lead a law school

[AfricanMustang]

As the law school dean at UC Berkeley from 1992 to 2000, Herma Hill Kay was the first woman to lead any of the nation’s elite legal academies.

Ms. Kay died in her sleep June 10 at age 82. She taught Berkeley law classes for nearly 57 years after becoming the school’s second-ever female law professor in 1960. At the time of her appointment, only 14 women had previously gained tenure at U.S. law schools, and they were the subject of a book she had nearly completed at the time of her death.

Born in South Carolina, Ms. Kay said her career path was influenced by a sixth-grade teacher, who told her after a classroom debate on the Civil War, ΓÇ£If you were my daughter, I’d send you to law school.ΓÇ¥

She attended Southern Methodist University and the University of Chicago Law School, where she edited the law review and graduated in 1959. After serving as a law clerk to California Supreme Court Justice Roger Traynor, she began her teaching career at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall.

She was also a pilot and an accomplished gardener.

Her husband, Carroll Brodsky, died in 2014. She is survived by three sons, Michael, John and Tom, and by four grandchildren.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/U ... 227008.php

[ponyboy]

I didn't know that. Sounds like she had a good life.