I got the chance to argue my first case in Supreme Court, a criminal case arising in Alabama that involved the right of a defendant to counsel at a critical stage in a capital case before a trial.

By 1962, King had become, by the media's reckoning, the new civil rights leader.

The women's rights movement of the 1970s had not yet emerged; except for Bella Abzug, I had no women supporters.

When Thurgood Marshall became a lawyer, race relations in the United States were particularly bad.

When I was 15, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. No one thought this was a good idea

Columbia Law School men were being drafted, and suddenly women who had done well in college were considered acceptable candidates for the vacant seats.

Had it not been for James Meredith, who was willing to risk his life, the University of Mississippi would still be all white.