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I've had women come up to me and say I was the reason they went to law school.

My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.

I was a sociology major. And it had nothing to do necessarily with law, which is ultimately - I went to law school. But what I tried to do was choose something that I was passionate about or something that I cared about.

Since I was a young girl, I always wanted to pursue law studies. I would have never imagined that my career would have taken a complete different route.

I think, when I was a young lawyer starting out, I was so determined to prove that I was as good as the men and that I could be given the same opportunities as the men, and it wouldn't make any difference at all that I was a woman. But actually, looking back on it now, I did do things that I wouldn't recommend to other women at all.

In 1960, when I graduated from college, people told me a woman couldn't go to law school. And when I graduated from law school, people told me, 'Law firms won't hire you.'

The concern was that if a woman was doing gender equality, her chances of making it to tenure in the law school were diminished. It was considered frivolous.

When I was little, my parents really only wanted me to be a scientist or a doctor; they had never even heard of law school. I think even these days if you were to tell your mother you want to be a fashion designer, or an artist or a writer, a lot of Asian parents would be alarmed because they don't think that's a secure career.

My parents wanted me to go to law school!