It’s hard to picture Perry in a skirt.

Setting out to change a culture is a daunting challenge, and most of us, given the opportunity to succeed without attempting such a risky task, opt for an easier path. Yet whether it is Jackie Robinson, Danica Patrick, Rosa Parks or Jason Collins, cultures need courageous reformers to keep evolving into more ethical horizons, and fortunately, the heroes eventually come along.

One culture that has been remarkably resistant to change is the practice of law, and the criminal defense bar in particular. Criminal defense is still  overwhelmingly a man’s realm, and a self-perpetuating one. The classic image of the defender of innocent (and guilty) accused criminals has been masculine for centuries, and as a result, few defendants needing a champion are likely to entrust their freedom and perhaps their lives to a defense attorney who looks like one of Clarence Darrow’s young mistresses, Perry Mason’s comely secretary Della Street, or Ann Rutledge. They want Clarence, Perry, or Abe: why take a chance?  Obstructed by such entrenched stereotypes and the need to pay off massive student loans, capable female law grads reasonably choose other legal fields, like family law, where female stereotypes work to their advantage, and avoid criminal law entirely. Consequently, no high-profile criminal trial lawyers with two x chromosomes break through the public’s consciousness, and the bias, the stereotype, and the cycle continues.

In Chicago, however, two recently-minted lawyers, Katie Kizer, 26, and Amanda Graham, 25, have the guts to try to break through the bias. They have formed a criminal law defense firm, despite having three bias strikes against them: they are female, they are young, and they are attractive. (Yes, in sexist professions, being older and unattractive often helps: it takes the edge off the stereotype. Women are often asked in such professions to dress down and to act as sexually neutral as possible.) If Kizer and Graham are also talented, hard-working and successful—and the indications are that the first two are true, with the jury out on the third—these two young lawyers can help change an archaic, sexist culture that has nothing to do with ability and everything to do with traditional expectations.

We should all be rooting for their success, and that we see them triumph in a dramatic criminal trial, and ideally several, that rivet the nation. Then we will see more female lawyers enter the ranks of the criminal defense bar, and another gender barrier will have crumbled.

It’s about time.

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Facts: ABA Journal