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Superior Court of Pennsylvania Judge Phyllis W. Beck's law career grew out of her refusal to be limited.
After graduating from Brown University and working as a journalist, Beek became active in Democratic politics, but soon realized that the politicians with whom she was working had definite ideas about her range as a woman.
"We're talking way before the women's movement," said Beck, one of the Philadelphia Business Journal's 1999 25 Women of Distinction. "I realized the politicians would be happy to have me paste stamps on envelopes the rest of my life. I realized that if I wanted to get beyond that I needed some kind of advanced degree because I had no intention of pasting stamps."
Beck enrolled at Temple University Law School, attending at night while raising her four children. "It was one way of getting out of the house," said Beck.
She graduated in 1967, first in her class.
After several years of general practice and five years as vice dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, in 1981 Beck was appointed by then-Gov. Richard Thornburgh to the Superior Court's intermediate appellate court, specializing in family law. She was the first woman to hold such a post. In 1983, Beck was elected to a 10-year term in the same post, and was reelected in 1993.
As a judge, Beck has been an active reformer, heading Gov. Bob Casey's Committee on...