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Authors: Carla Norton, Christine McGuire
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she’d come to work as the only female attorney in the office — in fact, in the whole county — had she come up against that feeling of being passed over and shut out?
When she’d accepted the job in 1980, Mcguire knew it wasn’t going to be easy being the only woman lawyer in a county so red-neck, so dominated by cattlemen, that the Tehama County emblem was the head of a steer. But at twenty-eight, she’d been excited by the prospect of trying felony cases — feasible in a small DA’s office, whereas in a big-city office she would have spent years working her way through infractions and misdemeanor cases. Here she was trying felonies her first year.
Not long after she was hired, Mcguire learned that, because she was a woman, many of her peers thought she’d been employed for reasons other than her professional skills. Indignant, she just dug in and worked harder.
Mcguire might have come in a little green, but she won cases. After encountering her in court, her colleagues began to get the message that she was not to be underestimated because of her size or her sex; she was feminine and petite, but not fragile.
But in the process of sharpening her prosecutorial skill Mcguire also managed to alienate a few people. While obliterating that first impression of being “tiny” and “delicate,” McGuire tended to come across as pushy, overly serious, and combativ. She didn’t mean to be that way, but that’s how her crossed arms and compressed lips were interpreted. She’d even had jurors come up to her after trials (which she’d won) to advise her to smile more.
Mcguire didn’t see herself as especially somber, and she was puzzled when people told her to “lighten up.” That unsmili manner was just her style.
“I don’t joke around in court,” she said. “Some attorneys do that, but I think it undermines the jury’s confidence in you not to mention the victim’s — if you’re seen laughing it up with the defense counsel and the judge. In chambers or outside of the courtroom, I’m as easygoing as anyone else, but I am serious in court. I guess that’s why people keep calling me ‘intense.’”
Mcguire’s background probably accounts for much of that intensity. Her Irish-Catholic upbringing didn’t leave much room for coddling. The second girl in a family of three daughters and one son, Mcguire grew up in a working-class suburb of Cleveland.
At an early age she learned to be ultraresponsible, very serious, and self-reliant.
Realizing that she was bright but no genius, she threw herself into her studies and, out of sheer tenacity, graduated from high school at sixteen. Then she went to work.
Holding down a full-time job as a secretary, she put herself through night school and, in 1972, became the first person in her family to finish college, even managing to graduate cum laude.
Though she hadn’t been shy about setting unexpectedly high educational goals, Christine hadn’t completely abandoned the conventions of home and family. Just out of college, she married handsome Steven Takacs, a chemical engineer whom she’d known for about three years. He was not Irish, but like Christine, he was Catholic. They were wed in a small outdoor ceremony on a hot summer day in August 1972.
Mcguire’s desire for a warm and secure homelife, however, was due to clash with her desire for a career. She and her husband moved to Southern California, where she put so much into speeding through Southwestern University Law School in two years rather than three that her marriage died from neglect. In 1978, Christine and Steven were divorced — a fate to which no good Catholic girl is easily reconciled, but particularly upsetting for Christine, who was the first in her family to get divorced.
Still reeling from her failed marriage, Christine spent one lonesome year in private practice in Orange County before becoming disenchanted with the flash and fast-lane frivolity of sprawling Southern California. Yearning
When she’d accepted the job in 1980, Mcguire knew it wasn’t going to be easy being the only woman lawyer in a county so red-neck, so dominated by cattlemen, that the Tehama County emblem was the head of a steer. But at twenty-eight, she’d been excited by the prospect of trying felony cases — feasible in a small DA’s office, whereas in a big-city office she would have spent years working her way through infractions and misdemeanor cases. Here she was trying felonies her first year.
Not long after she was hired, Mcguire learned that, because she was a woman, many of her peers thought she’d been employed for reasons other than her professional skills. Indignant, she just dug in and worked harder.
Mcguire might have come in a little green, but she won cases. After encountering her in court, her colleagues began to get the message that she was not to be underestimated because of her size or her sex; she was feminine and petite, but not fragile.
But in the process of sharpening her prosecutorial skill Mcguire also managed to alienate a few people. While obliterating that first impression of being “tiny” and “delicate,” McGuire tended to come across as pushy, overly serious, and combativ. She didn’t mean to be that way, but that’s how her crossed arms and compressed lips were interpreted. She’d even had jurors come up to her after trials (which she’d won) to advise her to smile more.
Mcguire didn’t see herself as especially somber, and she was puzzled when people told her to “lighten up.” That unsmili manner was just her style.
“I don’t joke around in court,” she said. “Some attorneys do that, but I think it undermines the jury’s confidence in you not to mention the victim’s — if you’re seen laughing it up with the defense counsel and the judge. In chambers or outside of the courtroom, I’m as easygoing as anyone else, but I am serious in court. I guess that’s why people keep calling me ‘intense.’”
Mcguire’s background probably accounts for much of that intensity. Her Irish-Catholic upbringing didn’t leave much room for coddling. The second girl in a family of three daughters and one son, Mcguire grew up in a working-class suburb of Cleveland.
At an early age she learned to be ultraresponsible, very serious, and self-reliant.
Realizing that she was bright but no genius, she threw herself into her studies and, out of sheer tenacity, graduated from high school at sixteen. Then she went to work.
Holding down a full-time job as a secretary, she put herself through night school and, in 1972, became the first person in her family to finish college, even managing to graduate cum laude.
Though she hadn’t been shy about setting unexpectedly high educational goals, Christine hadn’t completely abandoned the conventions of home and family. Just out of college, she married handsome Steven Takacs, a chemical engineer whom she’d known for about three years. He was not Irish, but like Christine, he was Catholic. They were wed in a small outdoor ceremony on a hot summer day in August 1972.
Mcguire’s desire for a warm and secure homelife, however, was due to clash with her desire for a career. She and her husband moved to Southern California, where she put so much into speeding through Southwestern University Law School in two years rather than three that her marriage died from neglect. In 1978, Christine and Steven were divorced — a fate to which no good Catholic girl is easily reconciled, but particularly upsetting for Christine, who was the first in her family to get divorced.
Still reeling from her failed marriage, Christine spent one lonesome year in private practice in Orange County before becoming disenchanted with the flash and fast-lane frivolity of sprawling Southern California. Yearning
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