There was more than one reason to celebrate at the "Women's Advancement in the Law" conference held Feb. 3  in Washington, D.C. by Duke University School of Law. Held in part to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the conference also served as a gathering place for the editors-in-chief of the flagship law journals of the top 16 law schools in the country, a group which, for the first time in history, is comprised entirely of women. This historic, diverse group of women included Gabriella A. Ravida, the editor-in-chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and only the second African American woman to ever hold the position.

In conjunction with the conference, the 16 editors-in-chief also collaborated on a joint publication called Women and the Law, compiling 14 essays from leading women lawyers, judges and legal academics that focused on the titular topic from a variety of perspectives. Three women with Philadelphia connections contributed to the publication: Maggie Blackhawk, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, lecturer in law at University of Pennsylvania Law School, Alka Pradhan, and U.S. District Judge Nitza I. Quiñones Alejandro of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

In her essay, "On Power and Indian Country," Blackhawk, a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, wrote of attending law school intending to specialize in Federal Indian law, only to discover the "near invisibility of Native Nations and Native peoples" at law school, despite the major influence that the federal government's interactions with Native nations and Native peoples have had on the shaping of the American legal framework. After graduation, Blackwater's work challenged two dominant legal theories—legal realism and the critical legal studies movement—in her use of the language of power, sovereignty and jurisdiction to reframe traditional analysis of Federal Indian Law. Despite facing skepticism for her approach, Blackwater's research, writing and teaching at Penn Law continues to combat the erasure of Native peoples and bring Native issues into greater focus within the legal academy.

For her part, Pradhan, Human Rights Counsel at the Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions, described the particular challenges of being a woman of color who chooses to wear a hijab while defending Guantanamo detainees in her essay, "Kafka's Court: Seeking Law and Justice at Guantanamo Bay." Pradhan practiced law in the purpose-built courtroom in Guantanamo, a male-dominated environment where she often found herself the only female attorney of color and was frequently subjected to comments based on assumptions about her religion, her gender, her status as a mother and the color of her skin. Pradhan described her decision to wear a hijab—despite not being Muslim—when in the courtroom in the presence of certain defendants as an attempt to avoid triggering in her clients any traumatic memories of sexual humiliation at the hands of female guards. Though her choice to don the hijab increased these types of comments, to Pradhan, the importance of her work in building a fair criminal justice system was more important than protecting herself from the censure of others.

In "A Personal Essay," Quiñones Alejandro recounts the story of her lengthy and impressive legal career, from her start as one of 25 women in her class of one hundred and 25 students at the University of Puerto Rico Law School, her first job at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, to moving into positions as a federal civil servant and attorney with the Social Security Administration and the first female attorney at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Quiñones Alejandro decided in 1990 to run for the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, after the state Senate had refused to confirm her nomination to the vacant post by Gov. Robert Casey and without the crucial endorsement of the Democratic Party. Overcoming these enormous odds, Quiñones Alejandro won a seat with the Common Pleas Court and, after 12 years on the bench, broke ground again as the first openly lesbian Latina to be appointed to serve as a federal judge with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Throughout these three essays, a clear, recurrent theme emerges—while the current preponderance of women at the helm of the country's top law journals is a tremendous milestone in legal academia worthy of celebration, there still remains much progress to be made for women in the legal profession, most notably for women of color. Despite the enormous success these three women achieved in their respective disciplines, their journeys were nevertheless fraught with discrimination on account of their gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation.

The Legal Intelligencer's annual review of the Pennsylvania legal community, PaLAW 2019, reported the percentage of female attorneys at 66 Pennsylvania law firms and found that the top firm had 46% percent female attorneys, while more than half of the surveyed firms had fewer than one-third female attorneys.The lowest had a mere 3.7%. These numbers, which include associates and of-counsel attorneys, grow even more dismal when focusing on the equity partner level or women of color. The statistics for women and women of color in legal academia and the federal courts (as of 2018, 27% of the federal judiciary were women) are similarly discouraging.

While the success of women in law school today serves as a great indicator for the future of women in the legal profession, this achievement should not be mistaken for the end goal. Recruiting, training and retaining women, especially women of color, must remain a top priority for all members of the legal industry.

Skye Nickalls is a partner in the public finance and corporate groups at Dilworth Paxson. She is a board member of the Philadelphia Diversity Law Group.

Christopher Nana-Sinkam is an associate in the commercial litigation group at the firm. He is also a Philadelphia Diversity Law Group Alumnus Fellow from the class of 2012.