WLP Managing Attorney Terry L. Fromson (center) with Carol Tracy (left) and Krishna Rami, president of Philly NOW.
The Philadelphia chapter of the National Organization for Women honored WLP’s Managing Attorney Terry L. Fromson alongside honorees Raquel Evita Saraswati of Philadelphia’s Mayor’s Commission on LGBT Affairs and Jasmine Sessoms, CEO and founder of She Can Run.
WLP Executive Director Carol Tracy introduced Fromson by noting this month marks Terry’s 25th anniversary working at the Women’s Law Project.
“I am not known for being speechless, but I must admit I truly struggle to adequately describe Terry’s brilliant mind, unparalleled work ethic, and the many ways she uses her talent to make the world a better place for women and girls,” said Tracy before describing how Terry was handed the task of taking on the insurance industry for discriminating against victims of domestic violence shortly after being hired.
Insurers were classifying battered women along with skydivers for allegedly voluntarily engaging in a risky lifestyle. Fromson’s work in this area contributed to the enactment of laws in at least 43 states prohibiting some or all of these practices. Ultimately, the Affordable Care Act also banned this type of discrimination in health insurance, affecting millions of people.
“Terry is the quintessential public interest lawyer,” Tracy added. “She takes on a challenge—be it massive litigation like her current case challenging gender inequity in athletics in a Pennsylvania university, developing a policy to seamlessly fit into a complicated legal landscape, or simply helping one woman in urgent need of timely and compassionate legal assistance, Terry handles it brilliantly … and then quickly moves right on to the next challenge. Terry rarely takes the time to bask in her accomplishment because I suspect in her mind that would be wasting time, because there’s always another case to file, another brief to write, another bill to analyze, another person who needs help.”
Of the many projects Terry has worked on throughout her career, she said in her remarks that WLP’s police accountability work that made her most proud. Twenty years ago, the Philadelphia Inquirer exposed the Philadelphia Special Victims Unit for mishandling sexual assault cases by burying one-third of them in non-crime category—and not investigating them at all.
Fromson, working with Tracy, was instrumental in leading the reform effort. Most urgently, the police went back and investigated five years of cases that had been ignored, and invited WLP was invited to review additional SVU case files to assess investigation protocols and identify troubling patterns.
“It was very unusual for feminist attorneys to be invited to go through police files,” Fromson said in her acceptance speech. “And it was very uncomfortable for SVU personnel to have us there looking at their files. But then again, all progress is forged in collaboration.”
The advocate-led review process is now often referred to as “the Philadelphia Model,” and has been adopted by cities across the U.S. and Canada. The New York City Police Department implemented it last year.
“We have a long way to go, and change is slow, but we must remember,” said Fromson, “We are making progress.”
Congratulations to all the honorees!
The Women’s Law Project is a public interest law center devoted to advancing the rights of women, girls, and LGBTQ people in Pennsylvania and beyond.
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