It has been 95 years since Iowa's Mrs. Arabella A. Mansfield hung out her shingle as the first licensed woman attorney in the U.S. In that same year, 1869, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Illinois State Bar's refusal to admit Mrs. Myra Bradwell with the observation that "the natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belong to the female sex evidently unfit it for many of the occupations of civil life." Today in the U.S., the woman lawyer lives and works in a society that has long since accepted a Myra Bradwell's right to practice law, but where many are still hesitant about taking their legal problems to an Arabella Mansfield.
The law is still an establishment of men. Only one of every 39 lawyers is a woman, and the ratio has changed little in the past 20 years. Some big firms refuse to hire women lawyers. Some judges are undisguisedly hostile to them. To most male lawyers, in fact, their sisters in the law seem about as welcome as a mother-in-law, unfit for trial work, suited only for matrimonial cases or such back-room fields as estates and trusts.
Nonetheless, at a midyear meeting of the 53-year-old National Association of Women Lawyers a fortnight ago in Chicago, delegates agreed that the talented, determined woman has greater opportunity in the law than ever before. More women are becoming interested in the law as a profession. Law schools have markedly relaxed their traditional prejudice against women students. And, largely because many women have proved outstanding attorneys and judges, it is slowly becoming easier for Portia to compete with males for jobs.
Magic Savvy. From her first week in law school, the would-be woman lawyer recognizes, in the words of a Columbia alumna, that "she has to do better than the men." "Two girls were eliminated in my class at University of Washington Law, because they just could not bring themselves to argue a rape case," recalls Mary Sanders, who herself has given up practice and is now chief law librarian for the attorney general of California. Another handicap, recalls a male jurist, is that "the men in law school study together, drink coffee together, share their notes, ideas and problems, while the women have to bear the burden as loners."
Women lawyers, including some who have finished school ahead of all the men in their class, say that the most critical challenge of all is finding the first job. "The large firms spend money training young lawyers," observes Mrs. Sarah T. Hughes, the Texas federal judge who swore in Lyndon Johnson as President, "and they're still leary of women marrying and having children." But the most frequent excuse is that clients would not have confidence in a woman lawyer. To overcome this, says Mrs. Carolyn Heine, placement director for the University of Southern California Law School, "the woman must have grades, personality, and a little of that magic savvy of women everywhere who can convince men to do what they don't know is good for them."