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When she showed up for work as a Chicago prosecutor in 1972, Patricia Bobb fought off a stint in juvenile court, the usual first slot for a woman. Bobb, fresh out of Notre Dame Law School, won assignment to criminal court. She kept on winning: a streak of 22 victories in cases that went to the jury. In 1977 Bobb drew "what we call a heater — a hot first-degree murder that produced a two-month trial and lots of publicity." Lapsing into the trial lawyer's habit of assessing courtroom opportunity, she recalls, "It had every thing, blood, gore, sex, kinky stuff. It was a great case." Working with two other prosecutors, Bobb nailed the defendants; each got a 100-to 200-year sentence.
Her reputation thus buoyed, she moved into more lucrative civil trial work, initially with Philip Corboy, Chicago's famed personal injury litigator. For two malpractice suits brought by parents of infants blinded after childbirth, she criss-crossed the country, taking out-of-court testimony from 26 doctors, and helped to secure a million-dollar settlement in one of the cases.
"Femaleness can be an advantage," she says. "A male opponent may ease up for fear of swinging the jury to sympathy for you. And I think women may have a better sensitivity to jurors." Now established in her own three-year-old, four-partner firm, she notes, "Until recently, women haven't had role models in the law. How do I act? What do I wear? Women have to learn to be tough, to be noticed but not intrusive."
The daughter of a former New Mexico Governor and married to a law school classmate, Bobb, 35, has no current plans to raise a family. She acknowledges that "I might resent a child for taking me away from what I want to do most." And what she does well. "She's the finest female personal injury lawyer I've ever seen," says Dan Webb, the U.S. Attorney in Chicago. Bobb would be only partly pleased to hear that. "I want to get to the point," she says, "where people say you're one of the best trial lawyers, not one of the best female trial lawyers." — By Bennett H. Beach.
Reported by Joelle Attinger/Boston and Lee Griggs/Chicago, with other bureaus