At the age of 26, when most young lawyers are thinking only of how to maintain a respectable number of billable hours, Sarah Weddington was embroiled in one of the most politically divisive and precedent-shaping cases of the 20th century: Roe v. Wade. And as if leading a landmark case like Roe as her first high-profile assignment wasn’t enough, Weddington went one step further: she won.

The story of Roe began in 1970, when Weddington was approached by a group of University of Texas graduate students working as abortion counselors. “They wanted a woman lawyer, and I was the only one they’d ever heard of,” Weddington said in her address to Penn Law’s Feminist Working Group last April, “And also, they wanted someone who would work for free.”

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