Linda Kersker’s life has been filled with many firsts. She is an original, courageous, self-starting role model, although she’d never admit it.
An Akron native, Kersker is a shareholder with the Akron-based law firm Brouse McDowell, which has 78 attorneys, more than 40 percent of them women. The firm’s ownership is split among shareholders, nearly 20 percent of whom are women.
Kersker became one of the first female partners in the law firm in 1978.
She credits her parents for encouraging her success and for never placing gender roles on their daughters. This gave her the strength and motivation to break through barriers and the status quo.
"My father had no sons," Kersker says. "I was always my father’s son, Linda. I was his last hope — the baby. I was the one who was going fishing with him; I got the baseball mitts and built woodworking projects in the basement."
A member of the first graduating class of Firestone High School in 1965, Kersker went on to attend Denison University. She entered law school in 1969 at the University of Michigan.
"My father was a businessman and he encouraged every one one of us to have a profession," Kersker says of her father, Ted. "He was extremely supportive of my going to law school at a time when it was somewhat unusual for women to do so."
Kersker recalls the years she spent in Ann Arbor as somewhat peculiar. While the peace movement, the civil rights movement and demonstrations engulfed many of the students’ lives, she was engrossed in books.
She doesn’t view her past through the struggles, but rather through the triumphs, and her determination helped mold her career. She recalls a turning point shortly after graduating from law school.
"I remember I was sitting in a corner office on the 20th floor in a major metropolitan city," Kersker says. "I had been waiting for my interview for half an hour when the man who was to interview me came in. He handed me a Martindale & Hubble legal directory and said, ‘There are a lot of opportunities in New York City.’
"I don’t think I realized what direction I wanted to take with my career until that day. I sat next to that same man at lunch and I said to myself, ‘This man doesn’t value me.’ I decided to tell him I was interested in a specialty that was the most unlikely thing for a woman. I told him I wanted to go into labor law."
