“Being underestimated is a strength, remember!” – writes Kathleen Martinez as the title of a video she shares of herself on Instagram and TikTok. On it, the American lawyer dances in a pink pantsuit in front of a courthouse, overlaid with the sentence in English: “Once I heard the opposing lawyer make fun of my pink suits – that’s why I wear these every time I win against him in court.”
Martinez deliberately doesn’t have much in common with the stereotypical image of a lawyer that many may have in mind: She has platinum blonde hair, wears heavy make-up, and almost exclusively wears pink pant suits or blazer dresses. The fact that some do not believe her professional success at first glance is something she experiences again and again. At her old job at a law firm, she was told by her male bosses that she couldn’t be taken seriously wearing pink clothes and that she should dress more conservatively.
In her videos on TikTok and Instagram, where she is followed by hundreds of thousands of people, she shares sexist remarks about how she eventually left her old job and set up her own all-female — and all-pink — law firm with her husband. He is from Mexico, because of him she started specializing in migration law. In the meantime, she has made a whole brand out of her appearance. In her videos and on her website, not only does she only wear pink two-piece suits – according to her own statement, she now owns 30 pieces – but also her employees. Her office is also all pink, and she sells pink daily planners on her website.
It is not for nothing that Martinez’s appearance reminds of Reese Witherspoon’s role of the law student Elle Woods from the US comedy “Legally Blonde” (German title: “Natürlich Blond”), which breaks with all legal clichés and, of course, shows it to everyone in the end. Martinez repeatedly references the film herself in her videos, showing them “A Day in the Life of Elle Woods” and throwing “Legally Blonde” themed parties for her employees.
In her videos, however, she also takes on more serious tones, in which she explains (often subtitled in English and Spanish) to immigrants in the USA about their rights and options for obtaining a green card, or in which US states one can get one can obtain a driver’s license without residence papers. She works with an all-female team that consists almost exclusively of women who have immigrated to the USA themselves – and therefore often know the concerns of the clients firsthand. Now she would also like to offer mentoring in the area of social media for lawyers and law students.
She didn’t expect to get so many reactions to her online presence, Martinez tells People magazine. Since she started sharing her day-to-day work online, she’s received thousands of applications from women who didn’t feel they belonged and couldn’t be themselves in their previous workplace.
That’s exactly how she felt, she tells the magazine, because her male colleagues made her feel like she wasn’t good enough and not smart enough; as if there is only an either or: “That I have to be either pretty or smart, either feminine or smart – as if you can’t be both.”
Sources: Instagram, People, New York Post
