After reading Steve Eckley’s “letter he was warned not to write,” Margaret Van Houten, a shareholder at Davis Brown Law Firm in Des Moines, was compelled to offer her own thoughts on the status of women in Iowa’s legal field. “My initial reaction to reading Steve’s letter … has been disheartened dismay that our daughters and granddaughters are now fighting the same battles as those of us women who were the first generation to enter the professional workforce in significant numbers,” she wrote. “Although this is a problem that needs to be addressed in many ways, one of the primary positive steps an organization like the ISBA and its leaders can take to reduce the incidence of harassment, discrimination and bias, and to effectively react to any such behavior, is to increase the number of women in significant leadership positions.”

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