National Women's History Month

Women in Law

Historically, the legal rights of women have been determined by men. Some legal historians even argue that women in the United States had no “legal rights” until 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified. Although the lives of women had been affected by laws, women themselves had played no direct role in legislating or enforcing these laws. They could not vote to elect legislators and thus had no direct leverage in the electoral process. It seems ironic that Justice, the symbol of the United States court system, is female, yet for years women were not able to participate in the judicial system except as defendants or third parties. For the most part, women did not enter the courtroom as lawyers until the late nineteenth century, and they could not serve as jurors until the twentieth century.

According to an American Bar Association report women are now a permanent and integral part of the legal profession. Women comprise 24% of the nation's lawyers. This percentage has doubled since 1985 when it was 13%. In 1971 there were only 3% women who practiced law. 44% of all law students are women and it is expected that women will make up 40% of the legal profession by the year 2010. Profiles of some of the prominent women who broke new ground in women's endeavors in the legal field are listed below.

Myra Bradwell | Ruth Bader Ginsburg | Belva Lockwood | Sandra Day O'connor | Roberta Cooper Ramo | Janet Reno

Myra Bradwell

In 1869, Myra Bradwell, after reading law with her husband, Judge James Bradwell, passed the test for admission to the Chicago Bar, but was denied admission by the Illinois Supreme Court on the grounds that she was married. Myra Bradwell took her case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the Illinois decision with the remarkable words of Associate Justice Joseph P. Bradley: "The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many occupations of civil life....The paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign office of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator." [83 U.S. 130 at 141].

The Illinois Supreme Court reversed its earlier decision in 1885 and directed that Myra Bradwell be granted a license to practice law. Bradwell's subsequent career saw her establish The Chicago Legal News on a sound financial basis.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ginsburg earned her LL.B. degree at Columbia Law School in 1957. 1961 she became a research associate and then associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure, learning Swedish to co-author a book on judicial procedure in Sweden. She was a Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law (Newark) from 1963 to 1972, and at Columbia Law School from 1972 to 1980, where she became the first tenured woman and co-authored the first law school case book on sex discrimination. In 1977 she became a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. As the chief litigator of the ACLU's women's rights project, she argued several cases in front of the Supreme Court and attained a reputation as a skilled oral advocate.

President Jimmy Carter nominated Ginsburg to serve as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals in the D.C. Circuit. She served as a federal appeals judge from 1981 until she was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1993. President Clinton nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on June 14, 1993. She was confirned by congress and became the second woman and first Jewish woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

Belva Lockwood

Lockwood obtained her Law degree from National University Law School but was barred from practice in the Court of Claims and the D.C. Supreme Court. In 1873 a judge ruled that Lockwood could not work as a lawyer in Maryland. He told her: "Women are not needed in the courts. Their place is in the home to wait upon their husbands, to bring up the children, to cook the meals, make beds, polish pans and dust furniture." In 1876 Lockwood drafted a bill which would permit women to practice before the United States Supreme Court. It took her three years to persuade Congress to pass the bill and in 1879 became the first woman to be admitted to practice in the federal courts and the first woman to practrice before the Supreme Court. Her other "firsts" include being the first woman presidential candidate, the first woman to graduate from a national law school, winning the largest award paid to a Native American tribe by the U.S. Government, and being the first person to navigate the streets of the nation's capital on a tricycle for efficiency purposes.

O'Connor was born in El Paso, Texas and attended Stanford University. O'Connor served as an Arizona assistant attorney general from 1965 to 1969, when she was appointed to a vacancy in the Arizona Senate. In 1974, she ran successfully for trial judge, a position she held until she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals in 1979. Eighteen months later, on July 7, 1981 President Ronald Reagan nominated her to the Supreme Court. In September 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor became the Court's 102nd justice and its first female member. During her time on the court, Justice O'Connor was best known for her dispassionate and meticulously researched opinions

Roberta Cooper Ramo

Ramo was born August 8, 1942, in Denver. The daughter of a Western clothing retailer, she graduated from the University of Colorado magna cum laude in 1964. She then entered the University of Chicago Law School, and received a juris doctorate in 1967.

In 1995, Mrs. Ramo became President of the American Bar Association, the first woman in history to head the world's largest organization of attorneys. Ramo was also the first ABA president with a technological bent, proselytizing for decades about the need for modern management techniques and computerization in running law firms. To that end, She authored a book titled How to Create a System for the Law Office. The 1975 book became a best-seller year after year and proved to be the most popular book ever published by the ABA.

Janet Reno

Reno received her LL.B. from Harvard in 1963. Despite her Harvard degree, she had difficulty obtaining work as a lawyer because she was a woman. In 1971 Janet Reno was named staff director of the Judiciary Committee of the Florida House of Representatives and helped revise the Florida court system. In 1973 she accepted a position with the Dade County State's Attorney's Office. In 1978, Reno was appointed State Attorney General for Dade County. She was elected to the Office of State Attorney in November 1978 and was returned to office by the voters four more times. She helped reform the juvenile justice system and pursued delinquent fathers for child support payments and established the Miami Drug Court.

In 1993, Reno became the first woman Attorney General of the United States of America. President Bill Clinton nominated her for the position on February 11, 1993. She was again appointed in 1997 by President Clinton.