From left: the Hon. Melissa Taylor Standridge, Hon. Nancy Caplinger, Hon. Christel Marquardt
The judges say the date was merely a coincidence. But on the 88th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in America, the first three-woman panel of the Kansas Court of Appeals convened today in Wichita.
Melissa Taylor Standridge, Nancy Caplinger and Christel E. Marquardt looked out in the gallery of lawyers waiting to argue their appeals and saw nothing but men.
“I said at the beginning this was an historic occasion, and I saw Christel out of the corner of my eye, thinking I was going to talk about her birthday,” joked Caplinger. “But this was the first time we’d had a three-woman panel of the Court of Appeals in Kansas, and we looked out and saw 13 men waiting to argue. How often does that happen?”
Not very often now. But it might have reminded Judge Marquardt of when she graduated Washburn Law School in 1974 and went to work as the only woman in private practice in Topeka.
“It’s like the end of a dream,” Marquardt said, “that we have a three-woman panel on the Court of Appeals. But it took too long to happen.”
Marquardt said the only difference in having three women on the panel, “When we get together, we can talk about things we wouldn’t ever do in front of the guys,” she said.
After they sat together for the first time in the second-floor courtroom at the historic federal courthouse in downtown Wichita, the city’s legal community marked the historic event with a reception at Bradley Fair.
On their journey, they’ve heard their colleagues on the Court of Appeals call them “girls.” And one nervous lawyer today addressed the judges as “ma’am.”
“Your honor” would be the appropriate term.