What a life!

I just learned of the passing of a long time friend and colleague, Whitney Adams -- a true pioneer in the law. Whitney was 61 but her true age was more like 41. She was a bundle of energy.

I first met Whitney when we were in the US Attorney's Office in DC. She was in the generation ahead of me which meant that she was among the first 25 women ever hired by the Office (I found out years ago that I was #25). We became good friends when she left Rogers & Wells to set up her own practice and we had adjacent offices at 888 16th Street. While I showed her some of the "ropes" for solo practice, her practice took off almost immediately due to her wide circle of friends and professional contacts. We shared lots of laughs and good times there before she eventually decided to move her office to McLean. She was always the source of good advice and she had terrific instincts about how to handle just about any situation. Eventually she became inhouse counsel to a technology firm.

Whitney was a trailblazer for women in so many ways. She was one of the founders of the Independent Women's Forum. While I did not agree with Whitney's politics, I was happy to support her when she ran for office in Virginia. Unfortunately for the voters there, she was unsuccessful in her run for state office. She also joined the Women's Economic Alliance that promoted breaking the glass ceiling with assertiveness training.

Whitney was a devoted mother to her two sons, Taylor and McLean, and often took them with her to professional events. She was so proud of them and their achievements. She was a real soccer mom. Taylor graduated from Princeton. McLean is a senior at UVa.

The only thing that Whitney could not conquer was breast cancer. As I recall from our conversation about it, she was misdiagnosed and the delay in her treatment caused the recurrence of it some years later. I sincerely hope that she got some justice before she passed. She fought the cancer with dogged determination.

Last week as she lay in her hospital bed, two friends of ours, Carol Bruce and Liz Medaglia, told her what an inspiration she had been to other women. Whitney wanted to make sure that her message got out to other women, "You need to tell them they can do it! They can do it!" she said.

Whitney, you did it. With style!