• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society Interview with Linda Chatman Thomsen Conducted on September 10, 2013 by William Thomas WT: This is an interview with Linda Chatman Thomsen for the SEC Historical Society’s virtual museum and archive of the history of financial regulation. I am William Thomas and today’s date is September 10th, 2013. We usually begin with your personal background, what your family did as an occupation, where you’re from, and then move pretty quickly into your education, so why don’t we begin with that? LT: I grew up in northern New Jersey, in an environment that was filled with lots of engineers and people who were working in the oil and refining business, because that was an industry that was relatively densely populated in northern New Jersey. My dad is a chemical engineer. He grew up in Philadelphia, my parents grew up in Philadelphia, and I was one of three sisters. WT: So then you went to Smith College, that’s right? LT: I did. WT: Okay, so could you tell us a little bit about what brought you to Smith? It’s particularly interesting for this series on women regulators, because it’s a women-only college, right? LT: It is a single sex institution. At the time, I remember actually when I was applying I was looking to go to school in New England and was looking at good schools that had a Interview with Linda Chatman Thomsen, September 10, 2013 2 diverse look. Back then you didn’t have the Internet so I was reading, I guess, Baron’s Guide to Colleges and whatnot, and for some reason it attracted me. But I remember going to a tea. In those days, Smith College alums would have teas for prospective students, and someone came up to me and said, “Did you always know you wanted to go a Seven Sisters?” I had no idea what she was talking about, because to me the Seven Sisters were the oil companies. Somehow I happened on the place and I loved it, and it was a great fit for me. WT: Terrific. And so what did you study there? LT: I studied government, which in other places would be political science but Smith takes a more theoretical than social science approach to government. WT: Did you go in knowing that you wanted to study government or was that something you selected while you were there? LT: I think I probably knew that was where I was headed. My interest in the law started sometime in high school, not for very good reasons but for reasons of expediency. I had a history course where we were supposed to go to original source materials, and the thought of shuffling through old newspapers, old deeds or microfiche was not that attractive to me. I determined that case law would count as original source research, so that’s when I started reading cases for some project and found it fascinating. When I got to Smith, perhaps the finest professor in the government department, Leo Weinstein, was Interview with Linda Chatman Thomsen, September 10, 2013 3 a constitutional law professor from an undergraduate academic perspective and he was terrific. WT: Did your parents push you in any direction or another, or was that entirely yours? LT: They did not. WT: All right. So then you went straight on to Harvard Law after that. LT: I did. WT: And how was that environment different? Was it still an old boy’s institution at the time or was it changed? This was in the mid-70s, yes? LT: In the ‘70s. I graduated in 1979. It admitted women to the law school later than most other law schools. When I was there, I’m not sure but I think it was only 25 percent women students. I think the bad old days were largely gone, but the stories about how the first women who went to Harvard Law School were treated were told and retold many times. There were notorious professors who never called on women, and when they did they declared it to be ladies day and only asked about sexually explicit cases and things like that. That was largely gone, but it was a male-dominated institution. Interview with Linda Chatman Thomsen, September 10, 2013 4 WT: Could you feel that in the culture around you? Was it a comfortable place to be as a woman at that point in time? LT: Well, there were enough of us. I think there was a critical mass. WT: Yes, 25 percent. LT: And there were some really terrific women there, and there were some terrific men across the board. I enjoyed myself there. WT: Did you have any mentors or role models, either at Smith or—I mean, you mentioned the one. LT: Well, the government professor at Smith was fantastic. At the law school I think I drew most of my inspiration from peers. It was in its own way remarkably collegial, though seriously competitive. There were a couple of professors along the way. One of the most inspiring was someone like Louis Loss, who taught me securities laws late in his career and he would tell great stories about what it was like to practice law. Phil Areeda, who taught contracts, was an utterly inspiring teacher. There were lots of really inspiring professors there at the time. WT: Did you have a notion that you would head towards securities law? Interview with Linda Chatman Thomsen, September 10, 2013 5 LT: Not at all. WT: No? So what were you planning on doing then, at the time? LT: I was planning on doing deals. I was going to do corporate work. I thought I was going to go to a law firm and really wanted to do deals, and I just turned out to be wrong. WT: So then you went to Davis Polk after you finished? LT: I did go to Davis Polk right after law school, and as I said, I thought I was going to do corporate work and did some corporate work, fully intended to do corporate work. WT: Well, could I ask, what were the circumstances that brought you to Davis Polk in particular? LT: The circumstances that brought me to Davis Polk were that I wanted to go to a law firm, I was torn between New York and D.C., and ultimately decided on New York, and I wanted to go to the best firm that would have me. After that I looked for a place based on the things I could judge, and to me that was collegiality and culture, and that was terrific and that assessment – I thought I was going to be a corporate lawyer – turned out to be spot on. I have gone back to Davis Polk twice more since then and that same culture of excellence, culture of collegiality and excellence, has drawn me back there. Interview with Linda Chatman Thomsen, September 10, 2013 6 WT: What was the mix there like, as far as women versus men? LT: Oh, it was interesting. I came, as I said, in the fall of 1979, and there were many women ahead of us but close in time. There weren’t that many who had been there for years and years at a time. There was one, or two female partners. One was Lydia Kess, who had been there for forever and was a true phenom, and Marlene Alva had either just become or was about to become a partner. So there were few partners in the ranks, but there were plenty of women associates. And around the time that I arrived, starting perhaps the year before and continuing for years after, there was a great increase in the percentage of women who were at the firm. WT: I would take it it would have seemed then that there were definitely opportunities for advancement with – LT: Plenty of opportunities for work for everyone. WT: Right. Let’s talk a little bit about the work. What would you have been involved with when you arrived out of law school? LT: Well, back then we had an unassigned program and so because I knew, or so I thought, that I would never litigate, I decided I would just try it to confirm that it was not the right thing for me. It turns out I loved it and one of the first things I worked on was a case involving Franklin National Bank. It was a private civil action around the collapse of the Interview with Linda Chatman Thomsen, September 10, 2013 7 Franklin National Bank. It ultimately settled. We represented Ernst & Ernst at the time. I think they had just become Ernst & Whinney in that action and it settled as the case started. WT: Okay. So you were contributing to the litigation process at that time? LT: Oh, it was a massive team. I was the youngest, the most junior person on the totem pole. WT: So let’s talk about how your career advanced then, within that environment. LT: Shortly thereafter the partner who was responsible for that matter opened the Washington office, and I moved to the Washington office and worked on all manner of civil litigation for a while. And then I concluded that, at least in my mind, if I was going to call myself a litigator I ought to go make sure I tried some cases. So I went to the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland for a few years, where I tried cases involving drugs.

Load more

  54

Copy Link