By Roberta M. Gubbins
Legal News
“I can’t tell you how far we have come as women in the legal profession over the 40 years I have been a lawyer,” said Maura Corrigan, director of the Department of Human Services (DHS) opening her remarks at the annual meeting in East Lansing of the Mid-Michigan Chapter of the Women Lawyers Association of Michigan.
“At that time (the late 1960’s) all of the women attending the entire school (University of Detroit Law School) could sit at one table of six in the ladies’ lounge.”
When she started law school her father did not believe that women should be in the law or in medicine. Corrigan said.
“Regrettably,” she said to laughter, “my father had six daughters. Over the next 25 years, my dad went from opposing my decision to become a lawyer to campaigning for me when I was running for the Supreme Court.”
Corrigan, a former Michigan Supreme Court Justice, commented that she believed the ‘glass ceiling’ had been shattered in the Michigan judiciary.
“In 1979, there were 24 women sitting on the bench out of the 500 positions,” she noted. “Now there are 125 women judges.”
As chief assistant to the U.S. Attorney in 1980s, Corrigan was frequently the only woman at management meetings.
When she was asked to be the expert on the ‘women’s issues,’ she rejected the term.
“Every issue is a women’s issue,” she said. “I believe that all issues belong to all of us.”
Corrigan then turned the conversation to her current position as director of DHS.
She said she took the job 17 months ago because she was intrigued by the challenge of managing an agency that has almost two million clients.
“Our mission,” she said, “is to improve the quality of life in Michigan by providing services to our vulnerable children and adults. Our vision is compassion, protection, and independence.
“The challenges facing the state are huge. We lost half of all the jobs lost in the entire United States in the state of Michigan. We became officially classified as an impoverished state by the federal government. A recent study reported that 47 percent of the citizens of Detroit were illiterate.”
Michigan, Corrigan noted, has four of the most violent cities in the U.S. — Detroit, Pontiac, Flint and Saginaw.
“It is the governor’s goal to reinvent Michigan and get those cities off the list,” she said.
At the DHS, Corrigan said, there is progress as well.
The child welfare workers have 12 cases per worker rather than 70.
“In October we will roll out a new computer system that coordinate with courts and others involved in child welfare,” Corrigan said. “A key victory for us was the change from putting the children out of the foster care system at 18 to keeping them until 21.”
“We have 130 children aging out of foster care who are graduating from college,” she said. Those students are attending Western Michigan University.
There are also 100 foster care students at the University of Michigan, financed by donor.
“The goal” she said, “is to expand the concept to as many colleges as possible.”
Corrigan believes that the practice of giving entitlements with nothing expected in return is wrong. In her opinion, it creates an addiction to welfare and is demeaning.
“We need to figure out ways to interrupt the pattern,” she said.
Corrigan said her department is moving workers into the schools in need to address truancy and gang membership.
Corrigan concluded with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King: “Everybody can be great because everybody can serve. You only need a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love.”
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