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You probably already know this but...
Last week I met Sarah Weddington. We both were speaking at the same event. I didn't know this but when she got out of law school in Texas in the early seventies, she couldn't find a job because she was a woman. So she went to work for a professor at the University of Texas. The family services clinic on campus came to her and said they had concerns because they were referring women to illegal abortion clinics.
So Sarah Weddington, in her very first court case, brought a case in federal court to stop the Texas Attorney General from prosecuting people for aiding and abetting an abortion. The three judge panel ruled in her favor. And then Wade, the Texas Attorney General, said he would ignore the ruling. So there is a federal rule that says if a local official refuses to comply with a Federal court ruling you can petition the Supreme Court directly. Which Sarah Weddington did and the court agreed to hear her case. So when she went before the Supreme Court (and she was the only lawyer that argued for her side) when she was only twenty seven years old, and it was only her second court appearance.
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