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This is a list of the first women judge(s) in Australia . The first court was established in 1788, [1] the first woman to be awarded a Bachelor of Laws degree graduated in 1903, [2] and the first woman barrister was admitted in 1905. [3] It was not until 1965 that the first woman was appointed to an Australian judicial position. [4] These pioneering Australians have been described as members of the FW2 club or First Woman to club. [5] The list includes positions to which no woman has been appointed as of March 2022 [update] . It does not include abolished courts to which no woman was appointed, such as the Commonwealth Industrial Court.
For a list of the first women lawyers see list of first women lawyers (Australia)
Mary Genevieve Gaudron, is an Australian lawyer and judge, who was the first female Justice of the High Court of Australia. She was the Solicitor-General of New South Wales from 1981 until 1987 before her appointment to the High Court. After her retirement in 2002, she joined the International Labour Organization, serving as the President of its Administrative Tribunal from 2011 until 2014.
Patricia Ann McGowan Wald was an American lawyer and jurist who served as the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1986 until 1991. She was the Court's first female chief judge and its first woman to be elevated, having been appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. From 1999 to 2001, Wald was a Justice of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Dame Roma Flinders Mitchell, was an Australian lawyer, judge and state governor. She was the first woman to hold a number of positions in Australia – the country's first woman judge, the first woman to be a Queen's Counsel, a chancellor of an Australian university and the Governor of an Australian state.
The number of women in the United States judiciary has increased as more women have entered law school, but women still face significant barriers in pursuing legal careers.
Susan Mary Kiefel is an Australian lawyer and barrister who was the 13th Chief Justice of Australia from 2017 to 2023. She concurrently served on the High Court of Australia from 2007 to 2023, previously being a judge of both the Supreme Court of Queensland and the Federal Court of Australia. Kiefel is the first woman to serve in the position of Chief Justice.
Ann Claire Williams is a retired United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a former United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She is currently of counsel at Jones Day.
Margaret Joan Beazley,, is an Australian jurist who is the 39th and current governor of New South Wales, serving since 2 May 2019. She was the president of the New South Wales Court of Appeal, the first woman to hold the office, from 2013 until February 2019.
Margaret Anne McMurdo is the former president of the Queensland Court of Appeal. Appointed on 30 July 1998, she was the first female president of an appellate court in Australia. She resigned effective 24 March 2017 after more than 18 years as a justice of the Court of Appeal.
The Commonwealth Industrial Court, known as the Australian Industrial Court from 1973, was a specialist court to deal with industrial matters, principally the enforcement of awards and orders of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. Over time it took on more matters and its judges were allocated a wide range of judicial tasks until it was replaced in 1977 by the Federal Court of Australia which had a more general jurisdiction covering matters arising under Australian federal law.
Helen Gay Murrell is an Australian lawyer and judge who was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory.
Jane Hamilton Mathews was a judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, a judge of the Federal Court of Australia and President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
Louise Taylor is a judge of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory, appointed on 26 July 2023 and due to be sworn in during August 2023. Before this appointment, she has been a Magistrate of the ACT since September 2018. She is the first Aboriginal person to be appointed as a judicial officer in the Australian Capital Territory, and the first Indigenous woman to become a Supreme Court judge in Australia.
Prior to the 20th Century, there were few women in law in the United Kingdom. Prior to the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919, women were not permitted to practice law in the United Kingdom. By 1931 there were around 100 female solicitors. The first female-only law partnership was founded in 1933. By 2019 51% of British solicitors were women.