Female lawyer

“ She might study law, to discipline her mind and to store it with useful information. She might profitably spend, in that way, time which would otherwise be devoted to music, painting, or the languages. But the noisy scenes now witnessed in a court room are scarcely compatible with the reserve, quietude, and gentleness that characterize a woman of refinement. Theodore Parker said: "As yet, I believe, no woman acts as a lawyer; but I see no reason why the profession of law might not be followed by women as well as men. ”

“ One reason for my success is, I discovered very early in the game that no woman believes she really needs a lawyer. She consults an attorney not for the purpose of getting his advice, but for sympathy and his approval of some course she has already decided on and perhaps already followed. A lawyer who tells a woman the truth thereby loses a client. He has only to agree with her and compliment her on her astuteness and sagacity to intrench himself forever in her confidence.
A woman will do what she wants to do—every time. She goes to a lawyer to explain why she intends to do it. ”

“ And the world’s need presses steadily, inexorably day by day. France had called 1500 men lawyers to the colours when the War Office sent a brief notice to the bar association of Paris: “On account of the absence of so many men at the front,” read the summons, “women lawyers are wanted in the Ministry of War.” Women have been in the legal profession in France since 1900. There are 52 women lawyers in Paris. But their practice has been limited largely to women clients. Madame Miropolsky has made a reputation as a divorce lawyer. ”

“ As every litigant who has to contend with a woman knows to his cost, feminine privilege is not confined to matrimonial matters, nor to the Criminal Courts. The purse of the male is hit in the Civil Courts quite as heavily as his person in the exercise of the criminal privileges of the female sex. ”

“ By and by, the interests of labor and trade will force the authorities of Bristol and Manchester, Newcastle and Plymouth, to do the same thing; and, after women have gone on for some twenty years electing members of Parliament, no one of us will be surprised to find some women sitting in that body. "But," objects somebody, "if that ever happens, we shall have women on [330] juries, women pleading at the bar, women as attorneys, and so on." And this is exactly what we want. Women are very much needed on juries, and female criminals will never be tried by their peers until they are there. ”

“ With the rapid advance of woman conditions are being manifested that require woman’s judgment, and to obtain true justice in matters relating to both sexes an equal number of men and women should compose both the court and the jury. By the end of the Twentieth Century, I believe, a woman’s judgment will carry as much weight as a man’s, and the opinions handed down from our higher courts will have to be concurred in by an equal number of male and female judges. ”

“ Henry R. Selden, who has argued my cause so ably, so earnestly, so unanswerably before your honor, is my political sovereign. Precisely as no disfranchised person is entitled to sit upon a jury, and no woman is entitled to the franchise, so, none but a regularly admitted lawyer is allowed to practice in the courts, and no woman can gain admission to the bar—hence, jury, judge, counsel, must all be of the superior class. ”

“ The fees that a married woman receives for her services as an attorney are just as much her earnings as the dollar that a sewing-woman receives for her day's work, and are just as much protected by the Act of 1869. Is it for the court to say, in advance, that it will not admit a married woman? Should she be admitted, and fail to perform her duty, or to comply with all her contracts as an attorney, could not the court, upon application, strike her name from the roll, or inflict more summary punishment? ”

“ To-day they have that conservative organ of public opinion, the London Times, urging in favour of their case: "Many prejudices against women have been shattered in this war. And there is no stronger theoretical case against the woman lawyer as such than against the woman doctor." The bill permitting women to enter the Law Society has passed a second reading in the House of Lords, Lord Buckmaster, its sponsor, declaring: "The true sphere of a woman's work ought to be measured by the world's need for her services and by her capacity to perform that work." ”

“ This means that women cannot under any circumstances be represented by members of their own sex, and there are those who believe that sex bias has so strong an operation as to tend to make the legal representatives engaged by women, consciously or unconsciously, less strenuous than they might be in defending their clients' interests. The legal profession is the avenue, not only to judicial office, but to many other important positions, and to close it to women means that these positions are unattainable by them.
Women are not prohibited by statute from becoming lawyers. ”

“ Yet how far does the element of sex defeat the ends of justice? To answer this question it is necessary to determine how far juries are liable to favor the testimony of a woman plaintiff merely because she is a woman, and how far sympathy for a woman arraigned as a prisoner is likely to warp their judgment. ”

“ In the law-courts you meet with a doctrine—a sort of unwritten law—that there are certain cases to which women must not listen. And occasionally “all decent women” are requested to leave the court, when “decent” men are allowed to stay. Now, in the face of that request it must be a very painful thing indeed for a woman to hold her ground—but it may be womanly for her to do so. It may be that in that case there are women witnesses; and I do not think our judges sufficiently realise what mental agony it may be to a woman to give evidence in a court where there are only men. ”

“ But, with all our dainty notions of female proprieties, women are, by common consent, dragged into court as witnesses, and subjected to the most scrutinizing and often indelicate examinations and questions, if either party imagines he can gain a sixpence, or dull the edge of a criminal prosecution, by her testimony. The interest, convenience, and prejudices of men, and not any true regard for the delicacy of the sex, seem to be the standard by which woman's rights and duties are to be measured. ”

“ The law not only did not protect women in their property rights, but did so much to prevent their getting or keeping them, that an able lawyer could not frame an instrument that would secure them even when signed by their intended husbands before marriage! This was more than thirty years ago, and some improvements have since been made in the laws in reference to women. ”

“ Persons who have been accustomed to see legal proceedings in the courts, and occasionally to see a female litigant in court, know very well whether they are apt to suffer wrong because their rights are determined wholly by men. ”

“ One welcomes heartily the idea of women lawyers, in the hope that when their keen, quick brains learn to grasp the huge, unwieldy, and complex machinery of the muddle called Legal Justice, they may, perhaps, be able to effect some reforms on behalf of their own sex. As matters at present stand, the unbridled and extravagant licentiousness of men, and the consequent degradation of women, are protected by law. ”

“ Whether, in the existing social relations between men and women, it would promote the proper administration of justice, and the general well-being of society, to permit women to engage in the trial of cases at the bar, is a question opening a wide field of discussion upon which it is not necessary for us to enter. It is sufficient to say that, in our opinion, the other implied limitation upon our power, to which we have above referred, must operate to prevent our admitting women to the office of attorney-at-law. ”

“ The number of cases where women of good environment appear as defendants in the criminal courts in the course of a year may be numbered upon the fingers of a single hand, and, although the number of female defendants may equal ten per cent of the total number of males, not one-tenth of the women brought to the bar of justice have had the benefit of an honest bringing up and good surroundings. ”

“ A married woman, if an attorney, could be committed for contempt of court the same as any other attorney. If she should collect money and refuse to pay it over, she could be sued for it the same as if she were single. A married woman is liable at law for all torts committed by her, unless done under the real or implied coercion of her husband. Having received a license to practice law as an attorney, and having acted as such, she would be estopped from saying she was not liable as an attorney upon any contract made by her in that capacity. ”

“ It is therefore all the more important to remember that these privileges conferred by the law of England on the woman against the man, are no dead letter. They are actually enforced with rigour that increases every day. Judge, jury, counsel and press vie with each other in driving the iron into the soul of the unfortunate man who is forced to contend with a woman in the law courts. ”

“ Resolved, That if the essence of a trial by an "impartial jury" be a trial by one's own equals, then has never a woman enjoyed that privilege in the hour of her need as a culprit. We, therefore, respectfully demand of our Legislature that, at least, the right of such trial by jury be accorded to women equally with men—that women be eligible to the jury-box, whenever one of their own sex is arraigned at the bar. ”

“ Such an extreme of squalid unrighteousness has been reached that it has become a commonplace of the legal profession that no justice is to be had in the Courts against a woman—unless in some case of outrageous atrocity, and not always even then. ”

“ She urged the women to study the statutes of their States relating to women and said that, while she had been glad to contribute her services as legal adviser and would not accept a salary, the association should employ a competent lawyer who could stay at the 'national headquarters and give her entire time to compiling the laws for women and giving legal information. ”

“ The United States Court of Claims, at December term, 1873, on full consideration, denied an application of a woman to be admitted to practice as an attorney upon the ground "that under the constitution and laws of the United States a Court is without power to grant such an application, and that a woman is without legal capacity to take the office of an attorney." ”

“ Fragments of her sisters’ pronouncements were wafted to Katherine’s ears. “No self-respecting, womanly woman would ever think of wanting to be a lawyer”—“A forward, brazen, unwomanly young person”—“A disgrace to the town, a disgrace to our sex”—“Think of the example she sets to impressionable young girls; they’ll want to break away and do all sorts of unwomanly things”—“Everybody knows her reason for being a lawyer is only that it gives her a greater chance to be with the men.” ”

“ What prudent business man would wish to engage in a business transaction with her? There are provisions of the Married Women's Property Act in England, which make her not liable to imprisonment for refusal to pay her debts. And who would choose to be represented in a court of law by an advocate who, though to-day in clear possession of all of her capacities, may to-morrow cease to be "responsible" before the law? For any woman, though not yet married, is always subject to that liability! ”

“ Subordination of the need for women on federal juries to the availability of physical accommodations for them is a tacit recognition that no fundamental infraction of the rights of litigants is involved in the continuance of exclusively male juries.
In some employments, women are distinguished from men, as a matter of law, in connection with their hours and conditions of work. ”

“ Lings would be adhered to, and the right of women to trial by juries composed in part at least of women negatived.
The legal profession, which plays so large and important a part in English life, is closed to women. ”

“ The Benches of the Inns of Court are responsible for the non-existence of women barristers. They have the right to regulate admission to the Bar, and their power of rejecting applicants is virtually absolute. They have so far refused to consider the applications of women. A woman solicitor is not a legal impossibility. The statutes governing this branch of the profession refer to "persons" simply. Probably, however, the Courts would decide that the function of a solicitor, being in the nature of a public function, cannot be exercised by women. ”

“ Other results of the inequality between the sexes so effectively urged by present-day Feminism, may be seen in the conduct of magistrates, judges and juries, in our courts civil and criminal. This has been already animadverted upon in the course of the present work, and illustrative cases given, as also in previous writings of the present author to which allusion has already been made. It is not too much to say that a man has practically no chance in the present day in a court of law, civil or criminal, of obtaining justice where a woman is in the case. ”

“ As to the first, it is fairly safe to say that a woman is much more likely to win a verdict in a civil court or to persuade the jury that the prisoner is guilty in a criminal case than a man would be in precisely similar circumstances. In most criminal prosecutions for the ordinary run of felonies little injustice is likely to result from this. There is one exception, however, where juries should reach conclusions with extreme caution, namely, where certain charges are brought by women against members of the opposite sex. ”