Initially snubbed by 40 law firms, she went on to become the first female solicitor general of New York State and argued cases before the Supreme Court. Reports the NY Times
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- Shirley A. Siegel, who as a top law school graduate overcame rejections by 40 male-dominated law firms before forging a career as a leading civil rights lawyer, arguing cases before the Supreme Court and becoming New York State’s first female solicitor general, died on Monday at her home in Manhattan. She was 101.
Her daughter, Ann B. Siegel, said the cause was complications of a stroke suffered a few weeks ago.
Ms. Siegel found her calling in life early, deciding at age 5 that she would become a lawyer before she even knew what a lawyer was. But once she started practicing law, she kept at it for more than 70 years, compiling a long list of achievements, notably in challenging racial discrimination by construction unions, landlords and developers.
Ms. Siegel organized New York State’s newly created Civil Rights Bureau in 1959 under the newly elected State Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz (a Republican who selected her even though she was a Democrat). She served under Mayor John V. Lindsay of New York as general counsel of the Housing and Development Administration, where she helped draft the Rent Stabilization Law. And she returned to Albany in 1979 when Attorney General Robert Abrams named her solicitor general, the official responsible for rendering opinions and arguing appeals of court decisions involving the state. She remained in that post until 1982.
Ms. Siegel regarded as one of her greatest accomplishments the blow she made in the Civil Rights Bureau against discrimination by organized labor in the building trades. Until then an applicant for union membership first had to have worked as an apprentice, a position typically granted on the basis of nepotism.
