By Jamilee Lambert
Staff Writer
The scene resembled that of a glamorous ball as more than 800 elegantly clad students, alumni and donors mingled inside the Grand Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton at the annual Pepperdine University School of Law dinner on Saturday evening.
The keynote speaker for the night was Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Justice Ginsburg spoke about the history of women and the Supreme Court.
She spoke proudly of the distance women in the law profession had come since the memoirs of Malvina Harlan were written.
Malvina Harlan wrote of a time during the Civil War when she helped to inspire her husband by shining former Chief Justice Roger Taney’s inkwell and placing it on his desk.
The inkwell had been used to write the Dred Scott opinion, which concluded that blacks, even when free, could never become citizens of the United States and thus did not have a right to sue in federal courts.
“Perhaps when my own thoughts do not flow I will go get the pen used in Bradbury v. Illinois, which was the case that excluded women from the practice of law,” Ginsburg said.
Ginsburg became an associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1993, when she was nominated by former President Bill Clinton.
Ginsburg is the second woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court, and the fourth Supreme Court Justice to speak at the dinner.
She was preceded by Justice Clarence Thomas in 1995, Justice Byron White in 1990 and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in 1985.
Other speakers included Pepperdine University President Dr. Andrew K. Benton, School of Law Dean Richardson R. Lynn, Board of Regents Chairperson Thomas J. Trimble and Associate Dean of Academics Shelley R. Saxer.
Several law students received Dalsimer Moot Court awards. Thirty- three teams competed for the award for a week prior to the dinner. The winning team consisted of Dan Droog and Scot Wilson. Each member received $1000 from alumnus Terry Giles.
The Legal Hero Award was alsopresented to Los Angeles attorney and former Los Angeles County Bar Associa-tion Chair John J. Quinn.
February 14, 2002
