LADY FOR THE DEFENSE

The title is a good indication of where this life of our first ""lady"" lawyer goes wrong. Anecdote after fictionalized anecdote tells us how brave Belva was as a child and how she smarted under her unequal status as a girl. Later we learn how her family, daughter Lura and her second husband supported her ambition, and how, unlike some of her radical counterparts, she ""always remained her womanly self"" in dresses that were ""modishly cut and frivolously trimmed with bugle beads."" It's impossible to tell how much of the dialogue--and this is practically all dialogue--is based on source material and how much is invention. But that, and the author's insensitivity to feminist issues, certainly dilutes the impact of Lockwood's accomplishment. . . a career first that was better summarized by Terry Dunnahoo only last year in Before the Supreme Court.