Linda Hirshman

Linda Hirshman is an attorney and author. Her most recent book, SISTERS IN LAW: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World, will be published in September, 2015 by HarperCollins. Over the past 40 years, Hirshman has brought historical perspective and deep analysis of controversial headline issues and social movements to readers of her books and columns in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, POLITICO, Glamour, and Salon. Linda predicted the recent Supreme Court ruling that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry three years in advance in her widely acclaimed 2012 Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution (HarperCollins). In a front page review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, Rich Benjamin wrote “Hirshman offers a crystal-­clear legal and philosophical explanation of the constitutional doctrine at stake, particularly in Romer v. Evans, the 1996 Supreme Court decision striking down Colorado’s ‘Amendment 2’ (which had banned state protection for gay men, lesbians and bisexuals), and in a string of state-level legal decisions affecting same-sex marriage rights.” Earlier, and equally powerful, books include Get to Work: A Manifesto For Women of the World (Penguin Books, 2007), The Woman’s Guide to Law School (Penguin Books, 1999) and Hard Bargains: The Politics of Sex (Oxford University Press 1999). A frequent contributor to a variety of publications, Hirshman’s recent columns have appeared in POLITCO, The Washington Post and The Daily Beast. She has been a guest on Sixty Minutes, Good Morning America, CBS News, CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and most memorably, on the Colbert Report on Comedy Central. Before becoming a writer, Hirshman was a Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at Brandeis University, Professor of Law at IIT Chicago Kent College of Law, Visiting Professor at Northwestern Law School. While practicing law, focusing primarily on labor law, she appeared in three Supreme Court cases (one win, one loss and one draw) including Garcia v. SAMTA, the landmark case which defined the line between the federal government and the states. She was the first visiting professor in the history of Northwestern Law School to win a coveted award for teaching. Hirshman received a PhD in Philosophy from University of Illinois at Chicago, a Juris Doctorate from University of Chicago Law School and a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University. Married until the death of her wonderful husband, she has three daughters and a lot of terrific grandchildren. She lives in New York and Arizona.