Women -- Employment -- United States; Women -- Social and moral questions
Lelia Robinson Sawtelle is author of “Law Made Easy” (published in
1886). Of this work, Hon. Charles T. Russell, professor in Boston
University Law School, says: “For the end proposed, the information and
instruction of the popular mind in the elements of law, civil and
criminal, I know of no work which surpasses it. It is comprehensive and
judicious in scope, accurate in statement, terse, vigorous, simple, and
clear in style. My gratification in this work is none the less that its
author is the first lady Bachelor of Laws graduated from our Boston
University Law School, and that she has thus early and fully vindicated
her right to the highest honors of the school accorded her at her
graduation.” Mrs. Sawtelle has since written a manual entitled “The Law
of Husband and Wife,” which likewise has been well received. She is now
at work upon another to be called “Wills and Inheritances.”
We have already spoken of Myra Bradwell as the editor of the _Chicago
Legal News_. Catharine V. Waite, LL.B., edits the _Chicago Law Times_,
which she founded in 1886. Bessie Bradwell Helmer, LL.B., compiled,
unassisted, ten volumes of Bradwell’s Appellate Court Reports. Cora A.
Benneson, LL.B., was law editor for the West Publishing Company of St.
Paul, Minnesota, in 1886.
The first association of women lawyers is called “The Equity Club.” This
was organized in October, 1886, by women students and graduates of the
Law Department of Michigan University, having for its object “the
interchange of encouragement and friendly counsel between women law
students and practitioners.” It is international in scope. Each member
is required to contribute a yearly letter, “giving an account of
individual experiences, thoughts on topics of general interest, and
helpful suggestions,” for publication and distribution among members of
the association.
Another association of women lawyers, organized in 1888, is the “Woman’s
International Bar Association,” having for its object:
1. To open law schools to women.
2. To remove all disabilities to admission of women to the bar, and to
secure their eligibility to the bench.
3. To disseminate knowledge concerning women’s legal status.
4. To secure better legal conditions for women.
Women lawyers are welcomed as members of bar associations established by
their brothers in the profession. Many have availed themselves of this
privilege.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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