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Women in the Law

Themis legal practice group represents female clients and their allies

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 11, 2024, 1:54 pm CDT

Two Chicago lawyers have created a practice group with a female focus.

The two lawyers, Allyson West and Kelly Olivier, “have built a rare legal team of their own—a practice by female trial attorneys, exclusively for female clients and their allies,” the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

The practice group, formed in 2022, is named after Themis, the Greek goddess of justice. The group is called Themis: Trial by Women, and it is part of Chicago personal injury and civil rights law firm Hale & Monico.

West and Olivier are unaware of other trial attorney groups run by women and focusing on women.

Nikia Gray, the executive director of the National Association for Law Placement, said she has never heard of a similar group.

“That’s definitely unique,” Gray told the Chicago Sun-Times. “I can see how an all-women legal team can help a woman feel more safe as a client, feel more understood, especially in more sensitive cases.”

The Chicago Sun-Times cited statistics showing that there are fewer female attorneys than male attorneys in leadership roles and a 2020 study about the tendency to discount the credibility of women reporting harassment by more powerful men.

“We’re not so naive to think that we’re going to change the systemic misogyny that’s been in place, especially in the legal profession, for hundreds of years,” Olivier told the Chicago Sun-Times. “That being said, we can make a change in our little corner of the universe and for our clients.”