The car brakes screeched while the cab skidded to a stop on the winding West Virginia mountain road. The driver looked back in astonishment while processing what he had just heard his passenger say. “You a lady lawyer?!” he asked. “I never met a lady lawyer before.”

This experience, related by UF Law Professor Berta Henandez-Truyol, was one of many shared by female faculty on Tuesday, as the Florida Association for Women Lawyers and Law Association for Women hosted “Women in the Legal Profession.”

Hernandez-Truyol was joined by Professors Leslie Knight, Lyrissa Lidsky, and Elizabeth Rowe. They each accounted their experiences in the legal profession, and went in chronological order to show how much, or how little, had changed. Each believed that the environment for women in the legal profession had changed, but that there is still a gender disparity.

“In thinking about women in the profession, there is a lot to celebrate and enjoy,” Hernandez-Truyol said,” but I think there are remaining challenges and roadblocks.”

Something that has changed remarkably, she said, is the makeup of law school classes. There were 34 women in her law school class, and 326 men. Now, most law school classes are comprised of women and men equally. Composition of faculty has likewise changed just as dramatically.

Knight’s career has ranged from corporate litigation to work as counsel for UF and now, of course, teaching at UF Law, with much in between. She said that she has seen a lot of changes and progression for women in the legal profession, but that she was lucky enough to be treated fairly throughout her career.

“I don’t think that’s the case for all women, but I do think that’s the case in my circumstances,” said Knight.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for Lidsky, who clerked for a federal judge that had some rather outdated ideas.

“I soon came to find out that whenever his secretary was out to lunch, he would ask the two female clerks, but not the male clerk to come in and do his typing,” she said. “So you’re sense of your legal skills and what you’re contributing and your intellectual bona fides are kind of undermined.”

Lidsky also related the story of a former student who, while attending a hearing in a judge’s chambers, was “berated for twenty minutes for wearing pants.” The anecdote drew shocked reactions from some students in the crowd, but only knowing nods from the rest of the panel, dispelling any idea that these instances are rare.

“One of the early lessons I had,” Lidsky said, “is that there’s a gap between what you expect is out there and what’s really out there.”

Rowe came to the same realization, despite graduating from law school in 1996. After seeing that her male counterparts in her class, which had rise to 40 percent women by this point, had the same ideas about gender equality, she did not expect that being a woman would impact her job. Rowe also made sure to highlight that she was able to be successful and enjoy her job.

“I say all that, but it took no more than a week of being a practicing attorney for me to be starkly aware of my gender,” she said.

She said that was mostly brought on by being one of very few women in almost every meeting she went to, but also how she was viewed when performing tasks such as attending depositions. These ranged from being mistaken for the court reporter, to being told to fetch coffee for the male attorney representing the other side after the deposition started going against his way.

Rowe also described the expectations of how to dress, wanting, but not daring, to wear pants.

“That’s why now I wear pants all the time,” she said, drawing laughs from the crowd.