Esther Rothstein, Class of 1949 Esther Rothstein was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1913. While she was employed as a legal secretary at the firm of McCarthy and Levin in Chicago in 1947, Rothstein was encouraged by Etha B. Fox to get her law degree. She worked full-time during the day and attended night classes at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, earning her degree in 1949. In 1955, she was elected partner at McCarthy and Levin, the first step of many which opened doors to other women lawyers. She was a founding member and president of the Women’ Bar Association Foundation, the first female president of the Chicago Bar Association, the first female trustee of the Illinois Institute of Technology and later a Life Trustee, the first female...