DeMarb an advocate for women in the legal field

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Fresh out of law school, Rebecca DeMarb had never encountered bankruptcy work. But after getting a taste of it at Murphy Desmond, she hasn’t looked back.

“I was interested in the complexity of the work,” she said. “I really enjoyed the fact that there’s transactional pieces as well as litigation.”

DeMarb, who is now a partner at DeMarb Brophy, represents businesses and companies in bankruptcies, receiverships, sales and reorganizations. Her work also touches on other areas of law such as tax, real estate and business.

“I also enjoy the fact that I can give clients a lot of relief through the process,” she said. “Bankruptcy is intended to create a fresh start. It’s not magic, but it does eventually get people there often.”

Bankruptcy law, like other areas of the legal field, remains dominated by men. At networking events for bankruptcy lawyers, in any given crowd of 100 people, it’s still typical to find only about three women, DeMarb said.

To help change that, in 2017 she started the Wisconsin network of the International Women’s Insolvency & Restructuring Federation. The group helps women in bankruptcy law and similar fields connect with each other and succeed. DeMarb’s network held its first event in March.

“It’s exciting to get everyone in a room and be able to talk directly about the issues that we’re facing,” she said.

However, DeMarb noted that she’s concerned that women continue to leave private practice.

“It frankly hasn’t changed a lot since I started practicing 22 years ago,” she said. “The older I get, the more concerned I am about who’s controlling the business. It’s still equity partners are around 16 to 17 percent women. And it’s been about there my whole practice. I’m hoping that’s going to be changing.”

Some people might like to put up barriers between their work life and family life, but DeMarb isn’t among them. She keeps her kids involved all the time. Recently, she had them working at her firm’s open house.

“I don’t have strict boundaries,” said DeMarb. “For better or worse, I’m integrating as many different pieces of my life as possible in order to maximize the return on the time.”