Melissa Bean has a friend in law school who recently had a child. Many people automatically assumed the woman should drop out to care for the child full time.

“[She] got a lot of flack for having a kid,” said Bean, a second year law student at the U and the president of the Women’s Law Caucus. “People make an assumption women should take a leave of absence.”

On the contrary, she said, women who stay in school while raising a family are “so strong, so bright. They do really well.”

Situations exactly like this are the reason the Women’s Law Caucus exists.

“Women are not represented equally in numbers,” as partners in law firms, Bean said. In addition, “There are a lot of old boys in the system who like to call us ‘honey.'”

The caucus works to mentor, partnering interested first year law students with older students. Law students are also matched with community attorneys from the Women Lawyers of Utah association.

Mentoring makes law school less intimidating and gives students experience in different areas of the law, Bean said.

“Women tend to end up more in social services or government types of law,” she said. The mentoring shows them the possibilities of going into business or anti-trust law.

The caucus has male as well as female members; its emphasis is simply on women in law, she said.

And, for women in law, the situation is looking up. Numbers of female law students are climbing. “Probably about 40 percent [of the law school] is made up of women,” Bean said.

But as long as the women in law must continue with their balancing act of family and school, the Women’s Law Caucus will be helpful, she said.