Carolyn Dimmick Final PDF.indd - Washington Secretary of State

Dimmick: Or a woman. We all did public service. We all went to the Prosecutor’s Office,
the Attorney General’s office.
Hughes: So it was just out of the question to think of getting into a law firm? You wouldn’t
even think that you could get an interview?
Dimmick: Never even attempted.
Hughes: You could be the brightest thing –
Dimmick: It didn’t make a difference. The one who finally got there was Betty Fletcher.
And the reason she got in a big firm is because she was in Law Review. She was at a Law
Review banquet and one of the partners of a big firm was sitting next to her and said,
“What are you going to do?” She said, “I don’t know. Can’t get a job” And they offered
her a job. She went. Before that we only had two other women (in law firms). Women
practiced with their husbands. Mary Ellen Krug Case was in the Schweppe Law Firm, labor
law. When we came out, the deans didn’t even encourage us to apply anyplace. You know,
the law firms would say, “We can interview two or three people. Send them on down.” No
women were ever sent anywhere. I got the job in the Attorney General’s Office through the
dean’s office because Don Eastvold decided he would take one (grad) from Seattle and one
from Gonzaga, as law clerks.
Hughes: Two females?
Dimmick: Just people. The dean said, “Why don’t you apply for that.” So I said, “OK.”
Hughes: Would it have been a real feather in your cap, in terms of getting a foot in the
door for a job, if you had done the Law Review?
Dimmick: I don’t think so.
Hughes: Tell us about the Law Review. Was that pretty prestigious?
Dimmick: It was very prestigious, but I didn’t realize that at the time. It didn’t make any
difference to me. I never would have thought I was going to be practicing law anyhow. But
the Law Review was just more work. I had to do caseloads; I didn’t need to do extra work.
I had my hands full. People told me I was crazy. It would be important to my career. But it
didn’t seem to matter.
Hughes: You’re kind of a go-with-the-flow kind of woman aren’t you?
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