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81 Mont. L. Rev. 1 (2020)

handle is hein.journals/montlr81 and id is 1 raw text is: FOREWORD A TRIBUTE TO THE HONORABLE KAREN TOWNSEND Cynthia Ford* Once started, Karen Townsend hasn't wasted a minute of her legal career, but they didn't make it easy to get started. Back in 1972, when Mrs. Burke Townsend decided to become a lawyer like her father, there literally were only a handful of women students at the University of Montana School of Law. Then living in Bozeman, applicant Townsend came up to Missoula for an interview with the legendary Dean Sullivan. His primary question to her was how she intended to fulfill family responsibilities to her husband, Burke, and their young son Alan, while she was living in Mis- soula. Although Burke and Karen had a joint plan regarding that, her appli- cation was denied. Not to be deterred, she re-applied and was accepted the following year. Judge Townsend recalls that the only change in her applica- tion was that Burke had been hired at the University of Montana as a Pro- fessor of Philosophy, so the family address was now in Missoula. In any event, the law school's (perhaps grudging) admission of Karen, one of only seven women1 in the class of 1976, proved to be an amazing gift to the bar, bench, and the people of Montana over the ensuing four decades. Karen's equally talented spouse and child were, and are, her biggest cheerleaders on her journey in the law. In fact, although I am honored to have been asked to write this tribute, Alan, now the Provost at Colorado College, beat me to the punch with one of the most moving mother-son * Prof. Cynthia Ford has had the honor of teaching at the law school in Missoula since 1990, and of knowing personally many of Montana's great lawyers. 1. The seven women who graduated in the Class of 1976 are: Janet Berry, Jean Ellison, Mae Nan Ellingson, Paulette Ferguson, Ann German, Ann Smoyer, and Karen Townsend. There were two or three women in the Class of 1974, and six or seven in the Class of 1975, so steam was gathering.

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