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Harriet S. Shapiro, the primary feminine lawyer ever employed within the U.S. solicitor basic’s workplace to current circumstances to the Supreme Court docket on behalf of the federal authorities, died on Feb. 1 in a hospice facility in Rockville, Md. She was 93.
The trigger was coronary heart failure, her son Alfred mentioned.
Ms. Shapiro joined the solicitor basic’s workplace in 1972 and spent 29 years there.
Maybe what set her aside much more than being the workplace’s first feminine lawyer was her desire for writing briefs over making oral arguments earlier than the Supreme Court docket. And it was her beautiful written shows that made her a famend determine in Washington authorized circles.
“Harriet was a sublime temporary author,” former Deputy Solicitor Common Kenneth S. Geller mentioned in an e-mail.
“Her briefs went for the jugular,” he added. “There have been no detours or distracting verbiage. I’m certain the justices appreciated that.”
For a lot of attorneys, showing in individual earlier than the nation’s highest court docket is a profession spotlight; these within the solicitor basic’s workplace do it routinely, and a few search to argue as many circumstances as attainable.
Not Ms. Shapiro.
“I by no means thought I used to be good at it,” she mentioned in a 2012 oral historical past interview for the Historic Society of the District of Columbia Circuit.
She didn’t just like the efficiency facet of oral shows and located the preparation overly hectic. Through the two weeks earlier than an argument, she mentioned, “there was just a little cloud over your head on a regular basis as you have been fascinated with what questions the court docket would possibly ask, how you would current arguments that may be persuasive, not too technical, however technical sufficient so that you just hit the factors that you just needed to hit.”
After a decade by which she made solely about 15 oral arguments — a slightly low quantity for somebody in her place — she shifted her focus completely to the written phrase. It was within the briefs the place the proof was marshaled and the place, she believed, a case was received or misplaced.
As she put it in 2012, “I write significantly better than I discuss.”
Ms. Shapiro ended up writing a whole bunch of briefs, enchantment suggestions and petitions on a variety of points, together with constitutional questions of equal safety, statutory questions involving environmental and labor legal guidelines, and questions concerning patents.
“She didn’t see herself as an advocate; she was a researcher,” her son mentioned. “She appreciated the puzzle of it. She appreciated fixing the issue.”
Harriet Morse Sturtevant was born on Sept. 7, 1928, in New Bedford, Mass., and grew up in Southern California. Her father, Alfred Henry Sturtevant, was a geneticist and a professor of biology on the California Institute of Know-how. Her mom, Phoebe (Reed) Sturtevant, was a homemaker and a self-taught carpenter.
Harriet graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley Faculty with a bachelor’s diploma in sociology in 1950. She labored for 2 years as a Social Safety claims examiner in Santa Rosa, Calif., earlier than returning east to attend Columbia Regulation College.
Whereas ladies made up 10 p.c of her 200-person class, she mentioned within the oral historical past that she by no means personally felt discriminated towards. She didn’t think about herself a feminist. Professors would sometimes make sexist feedback, she mentioned, however her angle was “It’s their drawback, not mine.”
On the finish of her second yr, she was named editor in chief of the Columbia Regulation Assessment, the second girl within the historical past of that prestigious journal to run it. Working alongside a principally male editorial employees able of management, she mentioned, taught her to claim herself. In 1954, she married a classmate, Howard Shapiro, one of many editors who labored below her on the regulation overview.
After they each graduated in 1955, they moved to Washington, the place they labored for the federal government, she on the Atomic Power Fee and he on the Justice Division.
In 1972, by which period Mr. Shapiro had turn out to be head of the appellate part of the division’s antitrust division, he discovered that Solicitor Common Erwin N. Griswold had been persuaded that it was time to rent a lady. Ms. Shapiro utilized for the job and acquired it.
She formally retired from the solicitor basic’s workplace in 1992 however continued to work there on a part-time foundation till 2001.
Along with her son Alfred, she is survived by one other son, Charles; a granddaughter; and a brother, Alfred Henry Sturtevant III. Her husband died in 2019.
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