Attorney Stephanie Bornstein called it “the most important thing I will ever do in my career.”

She was referring to her role in drafting California’s paid family leave legislation – otherwise known as SB 1661 -- which took effect in January 2004. The benefit, which become available in July 2004, provide workers up to six weeks of partial pay each year for time off to bond with a new child or to care for a seriously ill family member.

“It has the potential to affect every single California worker who pays into the State Disability Insurance fund, which is millions of people,” Bornstein said of the new law.

Bornstein has taken a circuitous route to her legal success. Born and raised in Fayetteville, New York, a tiny suburb of Syracuse, she lived her entire life in the same house until leaving the nest to attend college at Harvard. After graduation, however, she surprised her family by moving to San Francisco, where her best friend was living and had offered her a room in her apartment.

“One day we were talking on the phone and she said, ‘What are you doing there? Come join me,’” recalled Bornstein, who initially thought of her cross-country move as a lark. In retrospect, she says, “I was looking for something different. I was ready for a change from the East Coast.”

After the move, Bornstein enrolled in law school at the University of California at Berkeley, seeking a law track that suited her. A feminist, she was drawn to Equal Rights Advocates (ERA), a respected women’s law center in San Francisco specializing in gender discrimination cases, particularly those affecting poor women and women of color. After working at ERA as a law clerk, Bornstein set a goal of becoming a staff attorney at ERA.

She had “a great experience” clerking there, but ERA wasn’t hiring new attorneys. So Bornstein instead proposed that ERA sponsor her for a fellowship. “I basically told them, ‘I really want to work here and I’ll do whatever you want,’” she recalled, laughing at her own boldness.

Bornstein applied for the New Voices fellowship and was accepted, starting at ERA three months after graduating from law school. She chose work and family issues as her fellowship project after evaluating the options ERA had presented to her. Expanding family and medical leave was an issue the center had explored previously -- with little success.

Advocating for a cause she felt passionately about, Bornstein spearheaded ERA’s paid family leave efforts, helping to draft the legislation and fine-tuning it in its later stages. She became a media face for what is now SB 1661, which ultimately crossed the desk of California Governor Gray Davis.
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In September of 2002 – the month Bornstein’s two-year fellowship was to end – Davis signed the legislation, which has been hailed as a landmark victory for worker rights. When the benefits become available in July 2004, California will be the first state to offer its employees comprehensive paid family leave – a benefit unprecedented in any other state in the United States.

Bornstein thinks many factors contributed to the legislation’s passage, notably the proliferation of working mothers in the workforce. Another is an increase in the number of workers who provide care for older relatives – a growing trend in a nation whose citizens are living longer than ever before.

“The idea that the American workplace is based on a two-parent family where the father works and the mother stays home and takes care of the family doesn’t exist anymore,” Bornstein said. “This law is not just about children. It’s about a huge growing elderly population and a greater need for adults to take care of their sick parents as well.”

As California is frequently a predictor of nationwide policy trends, the effects of the paid family leave law could potentially extend to other states. Bornstein, for one, hopes that happens.

“This is a law that says it’s an important value for people to be able to take care of their sick family members. The goal is that it will serve as a model for other states,” she said.

At the end of her fellowship, after her high-profile success, ERA fulfilled Bornstein’s original aim by hiring her as a staff attorney. She credits the New Voices fellowship with making it possible.

“This is what I wanted to do, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without New Voices,” she said. “I’ve gotten to work on a huge range of things that I care passionately about, with access to brilliant and talented attorneys constantly mentoring me. It’s a total dream job.”