SEPTEMBER 2008
Copyright © 2008 by the author.
For reprint permission, contact the publisher: www.plaintiffmagazine.com
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BY STEPHEN ELLISON
It didn’t take long for Mary Alexan-
der’s law career to arrive at a crossroads.
Fresh out of Santa Clara University
law school and a new member of the Cali-
fornia State Bar, Alexander found herself
across from an interviewer at one of San
Francisco’s largest and most prestigious
firms, and an on-the-spot job offer star-
ing her in the face. It was the stuff of Gri-
sham fable, no doubt a scenario replayed
many times in the daydreams of aspiring
attorneys.
A widow and a single mother of an
eight-year-old daughter, Alexander could
hardly believe her fortune.
Then, without hesitation, she turned
it down.
“They liked my background in envi-
ronmental science. They were so im-
pressed with my credentials, they asked if
I could start that afternoon,” Alexander
recalls.
The firm wanted Alexander to help
defend an oil company being sued by
the widow of an employee who died of
leukemia. The widow’s wrongful death
suit claimed her husband had contracted
the disease as a result of long-term expo-
sure to the chemical benzene, which was
used to test asphalt road samples.
“I was stunned,” Alexander says.
“When they told me about the case they
wanted me for, I couldn’t believe what I
was hearing.”
Having been that
widow less than two
years earlier – Alexan-
der’s first husband died
of leukemia after exten-
sive use of benzene in
laboratory studies as a
civil engineering stu-
dent – she had little
choice but to walk away.
“It’s a day I will never forget,”
Alexander says. “I realized then that I
wanted to represent that widow and oth-
ers like her. The corporations weren’t
being held accountable for protecting
their workers. So, I took a job as a plain-
tiffs’ attorney for less money.”
Scientist turned decorated
lawyer
Science was Alexander’s initial calling,
and it led her to a career as a medical toxi-
cology researcher and the director of envi-
ronmental heal