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"I Wanted to Change Things"
Bowling Green Daily News
March 20, 1977
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It isn't easy to juggle college and a full-time job. Ask anyone who's tried it. But it's even more difficult to balance law school, part-time jobs, and a preschool age daughter and still keep your sanity. Especially if you're on your own.
Flora Stuart will tell you it can be done, and she should know. Now partnered with Kelley Thompson, Jr. in the practice of criminal law, she is living proof that it can be done with only minimal damage to the sanity.
"I haven't had any problems since getting to Bowling Green," she said last week. The people have really accepted me and the judges have been very fair and seem to show no resentment to the fact that I am a woman practicing law and actually trying case in court."
The cool, plant-lined office she now shares with Thompson is very different, of her law school days. "Oh yes, I had trouble when I was in school," she said. "Some of the teachers resent us (the female law students) because we were a breaking point. We were new to them and a little like invaders. Now it's not so bad. We broke them in."
Ms. Stuart said she had the most problems when she helped found the Women Lawyer's Club at Northern Kentucky University, where she attended the Chase School of Law. "The club was founded," she said, "because some of the male law students refused to have anything to do with the few female students. I took the problem up with the dean and he supported me all the way. After that, I didn't have too much trouble." The club has grown from six members at its inception to more than 23 at last count.
The decision to enter law school was inevitable in one way and not so probable in another. Born in New Orleans, Ms. Stuart said her father is a certified public accountant and attorney, now living in Arkansas. Her mother is a real estate broker in Bowling Green. Great-grandfather Clay Elliot was a judge on the court of appeals in Louisiana, so there was plenty of exposure to the field of law.
Ms. Stuart said she didn't decide to make law her career until her junior year in college. "When I was 14, we left New Orleans and moved to Chapel Hill, N.C. The move had a really profound effect on me.
"Living in Chapel Hill was like living in a completely different world. The discrimination against blacks became very apparent. In Louisiana at the time, blacks couldn't own land or vote. Moving was like coming out of the Dark Ages," she said.
After he family's move to North Carolina, Ms. Stuart said she became actively involved in politics and civil rights. "That was my entry into the political structure," she said. "By being involved I was becoming politically aware. It was later on, during my junior year in college, that I guess I decided that law was one way of being involved in politics, and deep down, I was hoping I could change things, too."
Although the decision sounds like the beginning of a novel about the rise of a young girl to fame and fortune, there was more to be considered in making the decision than whether law school sounded like a "good thing." Ms. Stuart also had to consider providing for her daughter, Natalie, born during her first year at Western Kentucky University.
"Sure, I wanted to change the world but I also had to support my child," she said. Getting where she wanted to go meant being a waitress and modeling for art classes and applying for every scholarship in sight. With the help of scholarships and the money from various odd jobs, Ms. Stuart managed to put herself through law school and take care of her daughter.
The "lady lawyer" credits her family with helping her stick to her aspirations. "My mother was very ambitious. My sister and I were raised with the goal of having a career - not just having babies." Now Ms. Stuart is the second woman lawyer in Bowling Green and the only woman practicing law. Her sister is a college professor with Ph. D. Since arriving here in August to practice law, she has tried five cases in Warren Circuit Court, making her the only woman in the history of Bowling Green to try a case before a jury.
Although she specializes in criminal law and representing women in divorce cases, she did have one fling with a civil case two weeks ago in Louisville. "And I won!" she said happily.
Her cases so far have "been interesting, I'll have to admit." Most of them have dealt with drug with drug offenses and shoplifting, but she says she is also interested in representing female clients in divorce actions. "I think it will be easier for a woman to communicate with another woman," she said. "I can understand the situation and relate better than a man." And being divorced with an eight-year-old daughter does help give a perspective that others may not have.
Right now, Ms. Stuart says she is content with being a partner in the firm of "Thompson and Stuart." Eventually, she would like to run for a judgeship. ("The U.S. Supreme Court, of course!" she laughed.) "I want to practice a good many years and then run for a judgeship not below the circuit court. Complicated legal problems fascinate me." It's quite an ambition, but for someone who entered law school as one woman out of six in a total enrollment of 220 and graduated as one of three women who made it, it certainly isn't unattainable.
Source: Bowling Green (KY) Daily News, March 20, 1977, p 30. By Teri Hurst, Women's Editor
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