Lawyer in a Mini-Skirt

(On-going Vietnam War Legacy Project. For details, see July 4 post.)

 

         SAIGON NOTES, Aug 19, 1971 (The Saigon Post)

 

                      by

                         Daniel Cameron

 

            Lawyer in a Mini-Skirt

 

Technically it may have been a midi, but MIss Dolores Donovan---known to friends as Dede--undoubtedly filled it.

 

She looked up from the desk of the LMDC (Lawyers Military Defense Committee) at 203 Tu Do St. Her hair isn't strictly red or utterly blonde, but there's plenty of it. She can let it fall to a bohemian, or Vietnamese length. Her face, suggestive of a higher intelligence, is womanly. A certain Praxitiles cast to it---you might say an Athenian brow. At that momentit seemed weary: care-worn, over-work, Vietnam blues. No-Doz or what the Victorians called melancholy? Maybe a little of each. It changed quickly as she smiled, though. The name rings Irish bells, but there could be a Scottish grandmother in the line, keeping things properly sober.

 

Miss Donovan's home is Palo Alto.  She's done a lot of living in San Francisco and graduated from Stanford Law School in 1970. She specialized in Constitutional Law.  She was working in Paris last October when she heard about the LMDC in Saigon and its work in defending G.I.s.

 

"I was interested in military law."

 

She could have gotten a job Stateside but decided to combine travel with learning miliitary law.

 

Travel wasn't a series of plane hops from hotel to hotel. Following a route crossed three times by this columnist, she left Istanbul by bus December 27 for the ferry across the Bosphorus. Asia opens with immense plains, prairies, deserts and  mountains,  The trip aggravates you and fascinates you.

 

Deserts end at the gateway to India, where Miss Donovan arrived in January and traveled for six weeks. She hit Saigon in March and was soon employed by LMDC.

 

LMDC is a non-profit organization incorporated in Cambridge, Mass. It's funded by private contributions and takes cases on reccommendation from  the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union.) The Saigon office was started in November 1970 by  Henry M.  Aronson. Yale graduate known for his 1965-67 Civil Rights work in Mississippi. Other Saigon staffers include David Addlestone of Washington, D.C, and Duke Law School, and Joseph Remcho of harvard Law School. Secretary Susan Sherer is from New York City. This staff will be replaced by a new one in November.

 

Another Saigon law firm also accepts G.I. cases, but LMDC accepts cases without payment.

 

Miss Donovan isn't the very first female lawyer here.

 

"There was a girl who worked for Kirkwood, but she left just before I got here. She didn't do military law."

 

Does being a woman affect one's professional activity?

 

"It makes a difference with the line officers, but not the JAG (Judge Advocate General) officers. The latter realize that a woman can be a lawyer."

 

She is conscious about liberation movements, including the feminine one.

 

"I'm a member of Women's Liberation."

 

She said it firmly. I forgot to ask whether the 'W' and 'L' should be capitalized.

 

At one time in her academic career---she majored in History and French---she was considering a Doctorate in French Literature. She finally decided on Law, because it seemed more vital and interesting. Bu she doesn't plan a career in military law.

 

"In the future I'll never exclusively practice military law, but this experience will be useful for civil liberties law."

 

She believes that in Vietnam there are many abuses of a soldier's civil rights, due partly to the "character of the Army."  She mentions pre-trial confinement, gross curtailment of rights and JAG officers who are over-worked and under-staffed.  These things may be "unavoidable" but "that is no excuse."

 

Impressions of Vietnam: "It's turned out to be what I expected. The longer I'm here, the more conscious I become of Vietnamese hostility."

 

Did she take this personally?

 

"Yes, when it's directed at me. People yelling, for example, particularly at Tan Son Nhut."

 

(Not the time for me to analyze ways in which 2 million G.I.s---many of whom would  be unwelcome in neighborhoods  where owners of the NY Times lived--- could affect a fairly sensitive population.)

 

When she returns to the States, she may join a 'law commune.' The term sort of startled me. I must have been way behind the times.

 

"A law commune," she explained, "operates on a basis of equality. Secretaries, for example, are on the same level as the lawyers. The commune is formed for radical and civil rights cases. Members live on a subsistence level."

 

The times they are a-changing?

 

Female emancipation has always seemed to me to be a dull subject, yet not without a certain border-line fascination. Was she, in fact, emancipated?  No, she explained. It was an on-going process of development, then? Yes. Even women she knew had a long way to go.  She knew two women lawyers in California who were going through the process. Emancipation, then, seemed to be a journey, not a goal. The goal, if any, was the journey itself.

 

How about idols? Were there any professional women who she espcially admired or respect, whom she looked to for you-know-what? No.

 

That reply assured me that Miss Donovan is a woman.

 

Our interview was terminated at that point, as four Negro G.I.s entered the office. The other lawyer had already left.

 

PS COMING SOON: The Talking New York Times Repertorial Blues.

PPS Tips?  Contact the Mon-Wed-Fri column you won't find in Stars & Stripes.

 

 

 

Comments

[miami accident lawyer]

Wow, lawyer in a mini-skirt. That is so unusual.

-James