Leading the Conversation

Shortly after moving to Philadelphia in 1997 and securing a position at Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis, Debbie Epstein Henry ’94 started to question the direction of her career. She wondered: Was it possible to play an integral role in her children’s lives and be on a partnership track?

Henry decided to start a brown bag lunch group for other lawyers interested in work-life issues. She emailed three local lawyers she had recently met, as well as three litigators at her firm, and asked them to forward her message to anyone who might be interested.

“I was a fifth-year associate and a fairly recent New York transplant. I barely knew anybody,” she said. “Within a couple of days, 150 people emailed me back. I knew I had struck a nerve.”

This profile of Debbie Epstein Henry originally appeared in the fall 2021 issue of Brooklyn Law Notes.