Pillsbury Partnership Dinner April 1971
at all in a corporate law firm, worked in domestic
represented many large international companies.
relations and trusts and estates departments,
When she started, she was the only woman
frequently as clerks with little prospect of
lawyer in the firm. She was still very shy and
engagement in international issues.”
uncomfortable speaking in public.
At NYU she was the only woman in an extremely
When asked why Chadbourne and Pillsbury were
large “intimidating” class and continued to over-
willing to hire a woman, Rembe thought for a
prepare. One well-known corporate tax professor,
moment then replied, “During my early career, the
John Eustice, later told her that he commenced
partners with daughters often turned out to be
teaching in 1960 and was more nervous having a
the most supportive. I think the men who hired me
woman in his class than she was being there.
were thinking of their own daughters and willing
After graduating Rembe was encouraged by her professors to interview on Wall Street. It was before EEOC and most firms said “no”, referring to her gender. They also said that that while they understood her desire to practice law, their clients would not. Thanks to an advanced degree in taxation at a time when there was a shortage of corporate tax lawyers and with the help of her professors, she received two offers.
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to give me and other women an equal chance.” She also mentioned that she received a great deal of support and advice from the firm’s secretaries, “who were happy to see a woman break into the all male sanctuary.” Her first large assignment at Pillsbury involved tax planning for the Mangla Dam construction project in Pakistan. Her developing international tax and construction law expertise later took her to South America, Asia and many countries throughout the world representing firm clients.
Rembe landed at Chadbourne, Parke, Whiteside &
She also developed an expertise in California
Wolff (now Chadbourne & Parke) at 25 Broadway
corporate tax matters at a time when California’s
in Manhattan and was put to work on tax planning
method of taxing international corporations was
for a potential TWA-Pan Am merger while
a world-wide cause célèbre and raised United
studying for the New York bar. As an associate
States Constitutional issues. While working on
she gleaned experience on corporate and
early international tax planning for Intel, she was
international tax issues, and later transferred from
introduced to her future husband, Arthur Rock, by
Chadbourne to the prestigious West Coast firm
another partner who was advising on a possible
of Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro in San Francisco
public offering for the company. (Rock and Rembe
(now, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP) which
were married in 1975.)