PBCBA BAR BULLETINS pbcba_bulletin_May 2019 | Page 14

SOUTH COUNTY C o u r t h o u s e
South County Courthouse Nursing Room
JULIA WYDA, ESQ.
Two years ago, I gave birth to a beautiful baby
girl. Like many female attorneys before me,
I returned to my firm a few months after and
was back in court quickly upon my return.
I was breastfeeding and tried to make that
a priority for my baby’s health, growth and
wellbeing. Though my firm fully supported
me, the realities of litigation did not make
it easy to continue breastfeeding. Long
hearings, depositions and travel to and
from courthouses make breastfeeding goals
difficult to achieve.
Luckily for the female attorneys that come
after me, Judge Samantha Schosberg
Feuer, Judge Jessica Ticktin, Fifteenth
Judicial Circuit Trial Court Administrator
Barbara Dawicke, and attorney Katherine
Kiziah worked tirelessly to bring a lactation
room to the South County Courthouse.
On February 27, 2019, the South County
Courthouse Nursing Room was opened
to attorneys and the public with a special
ribbon cutting ceremony, in which the South
County judges joined members of the Palm
Beach Chapter of FAWL, the South Palm
Beach County Chapter of FAWL, and the
Palm Beach Bar’s Young Lawyers Section
to celebrate this momentous occasion. It
was a well-attended event with moving
remarks by Chief Judge Krista Marx, Judge
Samantha Schosberg Feuer and attorney
Katherine Kiziah.
After the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Fifteenth
Judicial Circuit Administrative Order No.
2.107-2/19 was amended to provide that
South County Courthouse Room 2C114 is
designated as a nursing mothers’ room
and that anyone needing access to the
room should contact the South County Law
Library at 561-274-1440.
The South County Courthouse Nursing
Room is now our second lactation room in
courthouses in Palm Beach County. In 2017,
a lactation room was opened in the Main
Courthouse in West Palm Beach. For female
attorneys, these lactation rooms represent
not only a chance to continue breastfeeding
when it otherwise seems nearly impossible
as an attorney, but also a shift in the norms
and expectations of our legal community.
Finally, being a mother and breastfeeding
seem to be given significance in a profession
that can sometimes appear to devalue those
important natural and biological aspects
of women’s lives. Often the practice of
law and being a mother and breastfeeding
seem inherently in conflict. As female
attorneys face the juggle of motherhood and
maintaining their legal careers, the opening
of these lactation rooms signifies that help
is somehow on the way and we are not alone
in this confounding struggle of exhaustion
and love.
I hope that our Palm Beach Bar members
will spread the word about the South County
Courthouse Nursing Room, as well as the
nursing room in the Main Courthouse.
The lack of nursing accommodations for
mothers impacts our lawyers, clients,
witnesses and jurors. Please encourage
your fellow lawyers, clients and witnesses
to use these rooms if they are nursing.
If you want to get more involved, our Palm
Beach Chapter of FAWL is doing great
work to bring these accommodations to
all courthouses in our county. In addition,
State FAWL now has a Lactation Room
Task Force that is opening up a very
important dialogue throughout our state.
Recently, FAWL’s Lactation Room Task
Force was invited to join Martin County
Health Department’s Health State Coalition
Breastfeeding Committee to discuss the
cultural history of breastfeeding in the
United States, barriers to breastfeeding,
and the relationship between breastfeeding
and infant health outcomes. I hope our
legal community continues this dialogue
and that more of our courthouses, firms,
and corporate and government employers
will make accommodations for nursing
mothers.