By MARK MALLRD
Cindy Crawford. Cheryl Tiegs. Farrah Fawcett-Majors. Women that all make us feel special. Women that all give us a warm feeling just by hearing their names. Indeed, how often we forget that women can be one of nature’s greatest gifts to mankind.
So why is it that female attorneys are such a blight on us all? From Gloria Allred to Marcia Clark, female attorneys raise our blood pressure and create all sorts of mischief.
For all the government studies our tax dollars pay for, why don’t we know scientifically what practicing law does to female physiology? Or to the female mind? Anyone in the dating or professional world knows that the slings and arrows of the legal field do something profound to women. Perhaps it is the constant stream of cortisol flowing through their veins. Female attorneys -- generally -- are a potent formula of bitchiness, misplaced machismo and narcissism.
Upon several years of legal practice, even the sexiest, most feminine young ladies transform into Machiavellian harpy-women. Their walk stiffens, and their hips stop swaying. Their hair loses its luster. Wrinkles set in around their eyes, mouth and hands. Once bright eyes that filled with love, passion – the future – instead assume thousand-yard stares into bankers’ boxes and billing records.
Not just potential suitors lament. Attorneys themselves mourn the day that Arabella Mansfield was admitted to the Iowa Bar in 1869. The U.S. has gone from 1 practicing female attorney to roughly 275,000, and the legal world has become more petty, combative and wasteful than ever before. Ally McBeal, indeed. Silly personal gripes between lawyers metastasize into pitched battles that do not benefit we legal consumers.
Let's also not forget about female emotions -- volatile like the stormy sea -- that cloud judgment in stressful times. Clients pay with their wallet, their freedom and, on rarer occassion, with their lives.
A woman's place might not be in the home, but it certainly is not in the courtroom.
Women currently can be licensed to practice law in all 50 states. Each state supreme court administeres its state bar licensing. The time has come to end this gender-bending experiment. The U.S. Supreme Court should declare its authority over the individual states via the Supremacy Clause and prohibit females from being issues law licenses going forward.
Women who already invested in legal educations and are in practice should be allowed to remain so long as they keep their noses clean. On the other hand, no additional women should be given law licenses in any U.S. jurisdiction. A woman’s place might not be in the home, but it certainly is not in the courtroom.