‘It’s Always the Right Time to Do the Right Thing’

Throughout nearly 50 years as a practicing lawyer, Deborah R. Willig has always sided with the underdog.

Willig, our firm’s managing partner, recently sat down with the National Law Journal to discuss a legal career born of a deep passion for equality, a passion that burns just as fiercely today as it did when she earned her J.D. in 1975.

“It’s very easy for me to be a strong advocate for the people I represent because I believe in what I do,” Willig said. “I believe that the rights groups are all related and they’re intersectional. Whether you’re fighting for women’s rights, civil rights, or voters’ rights or workers’ rights, there’s a crossover on all of them.”

Entitled “Deborah Willig on Her Passion for Women’s, Civil and Workers’ Rights,” the article highlights Willig’s long career and its many milestones, including serving as the first woman chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, and her groundbreaking successful fight to secure same-sex health care benefits for employees of the Philadelphia Inquirer in the early 1990s. Willig talks about being a young female attorney counseling predominantly male workers’ unions in the 1970s and how she had to work to earn their trust, noting “the most important thing is to be a good lawyer. Once somebody has confidence in you, they get past the other things with which they don’t feel comfortable.”

Willig advises young lawyers to be passionate about their work regardless of the type of law they practice. “It’s a little harder to be passionate in, maybe, some transactional law, contract law, corporate law, trust and estates. It’s a little harder. People can be passionate still and like what they do, but I think clients see that passion in their lawyers and they know that you’re fighting for them, even if you lose.”

Read the full article online: Deborah Willig on Her Passion for Women’s, Civil and Workers’ Rights (Subscription may be required.)