Summer Reception Recap

The Summer Reception on June 1st at the Propylaeum saw 72 attendees. They gathered to listen to Professor Fran Watson's keynote speech, highlighting her work at the McKinney School of Law and the Wrongful Conviction Clinic, particularly the defense of Roosevelt Glenn and Darryl Pinkins, both wrongly convicted of a rape in Hammond, Ind., in 1989.

Prof. Watson talked about how the CBS television program 48 Hours had expressed an interest in the case earlier, but more senior producers thought the case was too complicated for viewers to follow. Netflix’s Making of a Murderer changed that perception and 48 Hours profiled the case, which Prof. Watson and the Clinic first began work on in 1999. See more information here. 

Prof. Watson also discussed being a law student at a time when few women went to law school, and those that did were criticized for taking a spot from a man—she described one incident where she had to overcome her frustration at a professor's anti-female tone in the hypo of a Torts final exam.
 
Thank you to all attendees and to Prof. Watson for her insights.

This article was submitted by Victoria Calhoon, Faegre Baker Daniels LLP. If you would like to write or submit content for the Women & the Law Division, please contact Kim Ferguson at kferguson@indybar.org.