Obituary
RIP: Janet Mary Riley, Crusading Women’s Rights Lawyer
Posted Jul 8, 2008, 12:10 pm CST
By Molly McDonough
A longtime Loyola University New Orleans School of Law professor who is credited with making Louisiana women equal partners in their marriages died Saturday. Janet Mary Riley was 92.
A Loyola law librarian-turned-law student, Riley was Loyola Law's first female professor, and she took the job in part because she was having trouble getting a law firm to hire her, the Associated Press reports.
Until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1971 that the Constitution banned certain types of sex-based discrimination, Louisiana's community property law made the husband "head and master of the community" and thus granted him total control of his wife's assets.
But after the high court's ruling, Riley headed a task force to change the state law. The committee she headed disbanded, but a state senator picked up the torch using Riley's proposed "equal management" approach. The Louisiana Legislature adopted the model in 1979.
Related Stories
- Social Network Sites Only Work for Lawyers Who Work at Them
5 hours, 40 minutes ago - Law Prof Stuck with $75K in Auction-Rate Securities
7 hours, 24 minutes ago - Four Factors that Could Change Law Practice
10 hours, 43 minutes ago - Perpetual Competition in Large Firms is Lesson of Evolutionary Biology
11 hours, 42 minutes ago
Related Topics
Commenting has expired on this post.
Comments
Posted by Michel Champagne - 4 months, 3 weeks, 3 days, 13 hours, 36 minutes ago
I never knew Dr Riley profesionally, not being an attorney myself. I first met her while waiting in line to get my car out of the garage following a performance by the fledgling Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in downtown New Orleans in the early 1990s when she struck up a conversation with my young son about the concert we had just attended. Shortly thereafter I realized that we attended the same church and would see her at Sunday Mass on occasion as well. Humerous and erudite, yet comfortably self-effacing, she never commandeered the converrsation and I never had any inkling of her accomplishments; she was a sheer joy to talk with. Unfortunately, she is one of many elderly persons who simply “fell off my radar” in all the commotion since Hurricane Katrina and I am saddened to realize that I will see her no more. A great loss to many; indeed, may she rest in peace!