In 1967 Vilma Martinez, a recent Columbia Law School grad, had a job interview with a large Texas firm. Afterward, the partner she met with told her point blank that she’d never be hired. “He said, ‘Our clients simply wouldn’t understand us having a woman or a Mexican lawyer,’” recalls Martinez. “And because he was being honest, I thanked him.”
Martinez got a job at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund instead—a pivotal first step in a career as a leading advocate for Latino civil rights. There she worked on some of the biggest civil rights matters of the day, including Griggs v. Duke Power, a landmark employment discrimination case that helped lay the legal foundation for affirmative action. In 1971 Martinez went to Cahill Gordon & Reindel as an associate, but public interest work kept beckoning. She joined the board of a fledgling civil rights group, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, and a year later, in 1973, signed on as president and general counsel.
