Even into the late ‘60s, women had made few inroads in legal academia. According to the “Women in U.S. Law Schools” paper, by 1965, there had been only around 30 women in tenure-track positions. One notable member of this group was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who taught at Rutgers and received tenure in 1969. A few years later, she became the first tenured woman at an Ivy League law school when she moved to Columbia Law School.
Today, women constitute 43% of law school faculty members, according to Enjuris, a significant increase from the 1980s when they made up only 20%. Akron Law is in line with this number, with women constituting 46% of the full-time faculty in 2024.
The first two full-time female faculty members at Akron Law were both law librarians. Evelyn G. DeWitt was law librarian and instructor in legal bibliography in 1960-61, the first full year for the school following the merger of Akron Law School into the University. Gertrude Johnson was assistant professor of law and law librarian from 1964-1972.
Assistant Professor of Law Gertrude Johnson is shown with Dean Stanley A. Samad, second from the right, and three of the four other full-time faculty in this 1965 photo.
In 1974, the Law School established a criminal appellate review clinic and hired two women just out of law school to run it. The first, Dana Castle ’73, who passed away in 2017, was in her early 40s when she graduated. She had a long career in market research in New York before divorcing and moving to Akron with her two children. She went on to become assistant to the dean and then a tenured Akron Law professor. She retired as professor emerita in 2000 and three years later received the Outstanding Alumni Award.
A 2017 Akron Legal News obituary quoted Akron Law Professor, Emeritus J. Dean Carro: “Dana was a pioneer. She was only the second female faculty member. She was demanding and rigorous at a time when those qualities were not that acceptable for a woman to possess. I’m sure she got a lot of push-back.”
Professor Margery Koosed found her own mentor in former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, who taught twice at the School of Law in the 1980s. This photo is from 1984.
The other hire for the criminal appellate review clinic was Margery Koosed, now Aileen McMurray Trusler Professor Emerita, who had just graduated from Case Western Reserve University School of Law. She had been one of a group of third-year law students who were paid to help 1Ls learn how to use new computerized research tools like Westlaw and Lexis.
Koosed was elevated from clinic coordinator and law lecturer to a tenure-track position in 1976, following a national search to fill an opening to teach Criminal Procedure. After her appointment, Koosed recalls, it was seven or eight years before another female tenure-track professor was added to the faculty.
“With few female faculty at each Ohio law school, women law faculty began meeting informally in the spirit of mentorship, a precursor to today’s northeast Ohio faculty scholarship gatherings,” Koosed recalled.
Koosed retired in 2012 but continues to teach a Death Penalty or Wrongful Conviction Seminar each fall – in her 50th year of teaching at Akron Law.
Professor of Law, Emerita Elizabeth Reilly ’78, joined the faculty in 1980 as an adjunct professor after graduating first in her class two years earlier. Before Akron Law, she was a member of the first class of women to attend Princeton University.
Reilly became a full-time member of the faculty in 1984 and was later honored as a C. Blake McDowell, Jr., Professor. She served as associate dean from 1995-2009 and interim dean from 2012-2014. Prior to serving as interim dean, she served as the University’s vice provost for academic planning.
Malina Coleman, who passed away in 2009, graduated from Akron North High School and Central State University. In 1985, she was the first student from Central State to be awarded a Juris Doctor degree from Yale University School of Law.
After practicing law in New York and Pennsylvania, she became the first African American woman on the Akron Law faculty in 1988. During her 20-year career, she served 11 years as associate dean of student affairs. She also was chair of the admissions committee and faculty advisor to the Black Law Students Association.
Sarah Cravens was on the Akron Law faculty for 14 years, beginning in 2005. In addition to her teaching, she served as director of faculty research (2015-16), assistant dean for global engagement (2015-16) and interim co-dean (2016-17). In 2017-18, she served as the University’s vice provost for strategic initiatives. She left Akron to serve as vice president for strategic initiatives & legal and chief of staff to the president of Missouri Western State University, former University of Akron President Matt Wilson. She is currently visiting professor of law at Washington & Lee University School of Law.