Super Lawyers - Oregon 2012

I just knew we
would be hearing
from a lot of
women who
had sat there
through the Anita
Hill testimony
and said, ‘She’s
right; we should
not put up with
this.’ And that,
in fact, is what
happened.”

—SNYDER

coast of Belize in the way of making their escape. They had engine trouble and ended up having to go ashore in an isolated jungle area [and] were stranded for several days. The father ultimately walked out, found people and was able to rescue the family, got a car … and was ultimately apprehended trying to enter Canada.

He was criminally prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to jail; and through that process, we learned that his mother had funded this escapade of kidnapping. I was determined to help [my client], who not only had had months not knowing where her children were but [had spent] every penny she could scrape together. [I] pursued a civil claim against the grandmother, which was hotly contested because it involved lots of conflicting legal issues. [But when] the case indeed was going to go to trial, the grandmother decided it was in her best interest to come up with the money to settle the case.

Q: What did your family think of your decision to go into law? A: My mother was extremely supportive because, when she graduated from high school, she had opportunities to go on to study, but because of her family’s financial circumstances they could not afford to send her to college. My father was supportive but mystified. [Laughs] He might have been considered to have more traditional values for what women were expected to do, but he never did anything to present any obstacles. Although I was very grateful that I got a full scholarship to go to the University of Notre Dame School of Law, my parents also provided financial support to the extent that they were able to. It was greatly appreciated, because then I got out of law school without the burden of debt, and I was able to plot my own course.

Q: In 1973 it was still relatively rare for a
woman to become an attorney. What was
that like?
A: It was unusual in terms of just the
raw numbers of women in the practice of
law. There were some examples [of role
models], but there also were significant
obstacles, because it really was still a
very unique role for a woman. When I was
clerking for [U.S. District] Judge [Otto]
Skopil and was out looking for my first
position, I had assumed that I would go
to a traditional medium- to large-size
law firm, and those opportunities were
not offered to me when I was focusing
on a litigation practice. But the district
attorney’s office for Multnomah County
at that point was [undergoing] a lot of
growth, a lot of hiring. The district attorney
was Harl Haas. He was very committed to
hiring women, and he had single-handedly
been responsible for hiring many, many
women who went on to develop litigation
careers as a result of decisions he made
in the early- to mid-’70s. Many of the fine
women litigators we now recognize as
litigators, or who are now judges, were as
a result of Harl Haas’ decision to hire. I
ended up going to the district attorney’s
office because it gave me that opportunity
to do litigation that was not offered to me
in private practice.

Q: You started your own firm in 1978. A: I made a conscious decision that I wasn’t going to go through that process again [of] trying to persuade people to offer me a job as a litigator. [So] I went out on my own when I left the district attorney’s office. I had a solo practice from March of 1978 until approximately 1981, when I hired my first associate. She was fresh out of law school. Eve [Miller] ultimately became a partner in the firm [after I went into] partnership with Ron Hoevet. Ron and I became law partners in approximately 1983. And now she is a judge.

Q: What was it like having your own firm as
a young woman?

A: When I left the district attorney’s office with absolutely no client base, I went into an office-share arrangement with two attorneys, one of whom primarily did business and the other primarily did real estate. They were looking for someone who would litigate the cases on behalf of their clients, so that was very valuable. The other thing I did is I accepted a part-time contract at juvenile court; I just did that for about six months in order to have some cash coming in. I, at that point in time, had been a litigator in the district attorney’s office for about four years, so I was fairly well-known because I’d been pretty aggressive and active, particularly doing felony litigation. So clients were referred to me. Initially, it was largely referrals in the family law area, which was not an area of law that I’d planned on practicing in.