The Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts (WBA) has over 1500 members and was founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1978 with a goal to achieve the full and equal participation of women in the legal profession and in a society. It is one of the oldest and largest women's bar associations in the country.
History
In 1979, a group of activist women lawyer's met for dinner at Dini's on Tremont Street in Boston. The discussion that night revolved around the concern that no bar association in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was speaking out on issues affecting women and women lawyers. Equally troubling to these early pioneers was the significant lack of women on the bench, and the failure of any bar association to actively encourage women to serve in the judiciary.
These women were convinced that a bar association that spoke out on behalf of women's issues would garner membership and gain credibility in the legal community. Thus, in the spring of 1977, the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts was born.
Today, 30 years later, the WBA & WBF occupy a small office suite on School Street, not far from where Dini's used to be. The Women's Bar Foundation (WBF) was founded in 1993 to oversee its charitable activities. Together, the staff of the WBA and WBF consist of a full-time executive director, membership director, strategic partnerships director, business manager, and administrative assistant, as well as a deputy director for both organizations and a staff attorney for the Family Law Project.
Highlights in WBA history
1978: WBA holds its first organization meeting
1979: Elaine Epstein becomes the first WBA president. 1980: WBA drafts and files its first bill-tax incentives for employer-sponsored child care. 1983: WBA files its first amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Hishon v. King & Spaulding (Title VII prohibits law firms from discriminating in partnership decisions). 1990: WBA hosts its first annual Gala. 1991: WBA sponsors "Battered Women Fighting Back." 1993: WBA creates the Women's Bar Foundation to oversee its pro bono projects. 2001: WBA publishes its ground-breaking report "More than Part-Time," receiving national and international attention. 2002: WBA successfully lobbies for the passage of the Contraceptives Coverage Bill (requiring private health insurers in Massachusetts to cover contraceptives).
Legislative agenda and achievements
The WBA has a Legislative Committee that seeks to advance various legislative priorities surrounding women and the law.
Legislative priorities
Welfare: The WBA supports An Act to Lift the Cap on Kids (SD1762/HD1262) the centerpiece of a campaign to repeal the Family Cap, a law which denies TAFDC cash assistance to a child born after the family first received TAFDC. Reproductive Rights: An Act relative to Advancing Contraception Coverage and Economic Security in our State (SD939/HD450) would codify the access to cost-free preventive care for women from ACA into state law, protecting access to no-copay birth control by requiring insurers cover all contraceptive measures approved by the FDA. Employment: The WBA supports two bills. An Act Establishing a Family and Medical Leave Insurance Program (SD1768/HD2573) requires employers to offer employees up to 16 weeks of paid leave for family care and up to 26 weeks for temporary disability leave. Employees would be eligible for such benefits after 1,250 hours of service, the current federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) standard. An Act Establishing the Massachusetts Pregnant Workers Fairness (SD338/HD955) amends MGL §4, ch.151B to cover women (pregnant & nursing) who need minor accommodations. Legal Services Funding: The WBA supports a funding increase to $23M for FY2018 budget item 0321-1600: General Support for legal services, funding for Battered Women's Legal Assistance Project, a program for advocacy for Medicare and a Disability Benefits Project to correct the shameful unmet need. Women's Health: The WBA supports An Act to Protect Girls from Genital Mutilation (SD1466/HD2873), a redraft developed by the WBA, which would protect girls in Massachusetts from harm from female genital mutilation (FGM). FGM involves removing part or all of a girl's healthy sex organs and surrounding tissue for non-medical reasons resulting in health consequences, death in childbirth and lifelong trauma and is recognized by the UN as a violation of human rights. Civil Rights In order to protect transgender people, the WBA supports a bill to add "gender identity or expression" to hate crimes and employment, housing, credit, public accommodation and education non-discrimination laws. An Act Relative to Transgender Equal Rights (S764/H502).