Page 20 - Delaware Lawyer - Winter 2019

FEATURE
Kate S. Keller
Being First
A roundtable discussion with four of Delaware’s female legal trailblazers.
The landscape of the legal profession has changed in the last 40 years.Women continue to pursue and enhance the once male-dominated profession year after year in greater numbers. Being the first to do something takes bravery, courage, and above all, persistence. Major changes never come easy and obstacles to success are inevitable. The Honorable Susan Del Pesco interviewed three women who helped initiate this change and open the legal profession to women in Delaware.
18 DELAWARE LAWYER WINTER 2019
When Kathy Jennings started at the Attorney General’s Office in 1978, she was the second female in the Criminal Division in all of Delaware. A majority of law enforcement officers and criminal defense attorneys were also male. When asked about navigating this world, Jennings said, “I am, to this day, so very grateful to Lucy Cirino, the only other woman prosecutor in the office, for mentoring me, because it was a pretty lonely world.”
Jennings was driven to succeed. She made the choice to volunteer for the most serious cases. The Attorney Gen- eral at the time, Richard Gebelein, cre- ated a Rape Unit. Jennings jumped at the
chance to volunteer for the unit. Why? “Because these were the toughest cases in the office,” she said. “It was mostly women who would come forward and tell their story of being raped. We did not have corroborating witnesses; it’s the nature of the crime.” Jennings quickly excelled in this role and ended up going to trial frequently due to the nature of the cases.
As Jennings continued to grow as an attorney and prosecutor, she started to try homicide cases, eventually investigat- ing and convicting Delaware’s only serial killer, Steven Pennell. “That was the first time DNA was used in a court of law in Delaware, and the third or fourth time in
Doneene Keemer Damon
in the First State