[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 104 (Thursday, June 4, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E513]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         TRIBUTE IN HONOR OF THE LIFE OF BARBARA ALLEN BABCOCK

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. ANNA G. ESHOO

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, June 4, 2020

  Ms. ESHOO. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the life and extraordinary 
work of Barbara Allen Babcock. Born on July 26, 1938, in Washington, 
D.C., to Doris Moses and Henry Allen Babcock, she died at her Stanford, 
California home on April 18, 2020.
  Barbara graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania 
and Yale Law School, where she was one of only 13 women in a class of 
175. At Yale, she was an editor of the Law Review and graduated Order 
of the Coif. Her first job was a clerkship for Judge Henry Edgerton of 
the U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit, after which she 
was a criminal defense associate at Williams and Connolly. She left 
private practice in 1968 to become the first Director of the Public 
Defender Service for the District of Columbia.
  Barbara Babcock joined the faculty of Stanford Law School in 1972, 
became its first tenured woman professor, and was the Judge John Crown 
Professor of Law, Emerita, at the time of her death. At Stanford she 
was beloved by her students, and four times was the recipient of the 
John Bingham Hurlbut Award for excellence in teaching. She left 
Stanford for two years during the Carter Administration to serve as 
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division in the Department of 
Justice, and while in that position she advocated for the appointment 
of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the United States Court of Appeals. Justice 
Ginsburg said later, ``I would not hold the good job I have today were 
it not for Barbara.''
  Barbara Babcock was a strong and effective advocate for women and 
minorities, and an inspiration to thousands of her students and others 
aspiring to legal careers. So many described her as warm, graceful, a 
great raconteur and a true friend. She was a leader, a pathbreaker, 
trailblazer and role model. She was an advocate for the importance of 
lawyers in society and for clinical education in law school, and helped 
to found Stanford's first law clinic, now the Stanford Community Law 
Clinic.
  Barbara Babcock was the author of many legal articles and several 
text books. She also wrote a memoir, Fish Raincoats: A Woman Lawyer's 
Life, and Woman Lawyer: The Trials of Clara Foltz, about the first 
woman lawyer in California.
  Madam Speaker, I ask the entire House of Representatives to join me 
in extending our condolences to Barbara Allen Babcock's family and 
honoring her extraordinary life.
  Because of her lifetime of shaping generations to practice and love 
the law, create a more just society, and an unswerving commitment to 
see that women advanced in our nation, Barbara Babcock bettered our 
country immeasurably and will forever be a national treasure.

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