WLP interim co-director Susan J. Frietsche in her office in Pittsburgh Photo: Sebastian Foltz / NEXTPittsburgh
What kind of person signs up for law school not to become a lawyer, but just to become better at their job?
A hardworking person unafraid to take on big challenges: Our own Susan J. Frietsche recently shared that tidbit during an interview with NEXTPittsburgh. Thankfully, Sue changed her mind about becoming a lawyer once she started taking classes. Today, Sue is a nationally recognized reproductive rights attorney who has devoted three decades to advancing gender justice in Pennsylvania, with a special focus on expanding and defending reproductive rights and abortion access.
Sue joined the Women’s Law Project in 1992, opened our Western Pennsylvania office in 2002, then became our interim co-director last year shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
While the U.S. Supreme Court ruling was devastating, it was not a surprise. As lead attorney of the reproductive rights team, Sue and the WLP reproductive rights team had been strategizing for years about how to protect abortion access in Pennsylvania if and when the federal floor fell out beneath us.
Read more about her work, including the critical abortion rights and access case she, along with Drexel law professor David S. Cohen and WLP attorney Christine Castro, argued before Pennsylvania Supreme Court last fall, in this great profile and interview by L.E. McCullough at NEXTPittsburgh.
Women’s Law Project is a non-profit public interest law center in Pennsylvania devoted to advancing and defending the rights of women, girls, and LGBTQ+ people in Pennsylvania and beyond.
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