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The Women’s Caucus has been a fixture at IU McKinney School of Law since 1977, but does anyone remember the origins of the group?

Ten women remember. They were there at the beginning and have met annually since 1980 for a reunion that celebrates their unique role in IU McKinney history and their friendship, which has lasted through four decades.

Gathering at an Airbnb in Greenwood, Indiana from a half-dozen different cities for the weekend of September 27-29, the informal alumnae group laughed a lot and shed a few tears as they recalled their law school experiences and lives they’ve lived and shared since.

Lauran Hansen Dean, ’79, is a charitable gift planner and consultant, and Senior Director for Development for the University of Texas at Austin, and one of the founders of the Women’s Caucus, as well as its first president.

“It was a challenging time for women,” Hansen Dean says. One-third of the class entering law school in 1976 were women, the result of a gradual, dramatic shift that had begun at the beginning of the decade when only a handful of women had enrolled in what was then known as the IU School of Law-Indianapolis.

By 1977, the newly organized Women’s Caucus included 50 students, and membership doubled the following year. There was a newsletter, “Caucus Voice,” and the group hosted a successful inaugural conference on women’s issues and the law, charging $5 for a daylong event that included sessions on assertiveness training, access to credit and personal finance issues, affirmative action, rape and abuse.

While the increasing numbers of women in law school was progress, it also seemed to heighten tensions in some ways, Hansen Dean says. Women were suddenly a force to be reckoned with. It wasn’t unusual for women to hear, for example, that they had taken a spot in law school that should have gone to a man. Hansen Dean recalls objecting to one professor’s exams, which frequently used unflattering, stereotypical portrayals of women in case studies.

At their reunion in Greenwood, the women also recalled supportive professors, and the construction of additional women’s bathroom stalls at what was then a nearly new law school building on New York Street.

“I only have fond memories of law school,” says Kathelene Williams, ’79, a partner in the law firm Williams & Edelstein, co-founder and partner of the Fair Housing Institute Inc., and living in Hilton Head, South Carolina.

At the reunion, the women swapped stories about how, once they had graduated and passed their bar exams, the found limited job opportunities—and job interviews that included questions about their birth control methods or plans for marriage. Yet founders and early members of the Women’s Caucus went on to achieve many firsts and accomplishments during their legal careers. Members in the reunion group include:

•    The Honorable Sheila Corcoran, ’79, Senior Judge, State of Indiana
•    Janet Corson, ’80, retired Director of the Indiana Division of Mental Health and Addiction
•    Lisa Stone Cunning, ’80, retired, one of the first women partners at Ice Miller
•    Pamela J. Davidson, ’79, president of Davidson Gift Design, Bloomington, a consulting firm specializing in gift planning, planned giving program design and implementation and training, and former Executive Director at the IU Foundation
•    Sue Ann Hartig, ’79, retired after serving as the first female judicial officer in Vanderburgh County and 26 years as Executive Director of the Legal Aid Society of Evansville
•    Chris Kunz, ’78, Emerita Professor of Law, Mitchell Hamline School of Law, and Master Water Steward in St. Paul, Minnesota
•    The Honorable R. Paulette Stagg, ’79, Magistrate, Vigo County
•    Jodie Woods, ’80, General Counsel for the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns/Accelerate Indiana Municipalities (AIM), one of the first practicing female attorneys in Johnson County, and former City Attorney for Greenwood.

“Look at our varied careers,” Williams said. “Our lives wouldn’t have been the same without law school.”

The women talk about how much they miss one of their group, the late Kelley Beckes Huebner, former Martin County (Indiana) Circuit Court Judge, who died in 2001. Many of them travelled to attend her swearing-in as judge and, a few years later, attended a memorial service that had been scheduled to coincide with Hansen Dean’s wedding so that the friends could mourn and celebrate together.

Sharing those life events is what has kept the group close, according to Corson, who recalls being eight months pregnant during her law school finals. No matter what their individual choices, the Women’s Caucus friends were supportive.

“That’s what this group was about,” she says. “Having choices.”