Viveca Monet Woods was one of Nevada's first two African American female lawyers. In 1980, she and Johnnie B. Rawlinson became the first African American females admitted to practice law in Nevada. Woods later became the first African American woman to serve as an Assistant United States Attorney in Nevada. [1] [2]
Constance Baker Motley was an American jurist and politician who served as a Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The National Bar Association (NBA) was founded in 1925 and is the nation's oldest and largest national network of predominantly African-American attorneys and judges. It represents the interests of approximately 67,000 lawyers, judges, law professors, and law students.
Charlotte E. Ray was an American lawyer. She was the first black American female lawyer in the United States. Ray graduated from Howard University School of Law in 1872. She was also the first female admitted to the District of Columbia Bar, and the first woman admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. Her admission was used as a precedent by women in other states who sought admission to the bar.
Mahala Ashley Dickerson was an American lawyer and civil rights advocate for women and minorities. In 1948 she became the first African American female attorney admitted to the Alabama State Bar; in 1951 she was the second African American woman admitted to the Indiana bar; and in 1959 she was Alaska's first African American attorney. In 1983 Dickerson was the first African American to be elected president of the National Association of Women Lawyers. Her long legal career also helped to pave the way for other women attorneys. In 1995 the American Bar Association named her a Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement honoree.
Johnnie Mae Blakeney Rawlinson is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Nevada.
Miriam Mattinen Shearing is an American lawyer and retired judge in Nevada. Shearing was the first woman to serve as a Nevada district judge and as justice and chief justice on the Supreme Court of Nevada (1993–2005).
Violette Neatley Anderson became the first African-American woman to practice law before the United States Supreme Court on January 29, 1926. She was one of the most prominent advocates of a landmark piece of legislation that helped secure rights and economic mobility for sharecroppers in the South, the Bankhead-Jones Act.
Women in law describes the role played by women in the legal profession and related occupations, which includes lawyers, paralegals, prosecutors, judges, legal scholars, law professors and law school deans.
The history of the American legal profession covers the work, training, and professional activities of lawyers from the colonial era to the present. Lawyers grew increasingly powerful in the colonial era as experts in the English common law, which was adopted by the colonies. By the 21st century, over one million practitioners in the United States held law degrees, and many others served the legal system as justices of the peace, paralegals, marshals, and other aides.
Laura May Tilden Wilson (1872–1928) was Nevada's first female lawyer.
Minnie Anderson Hale was one of the first three female lawyers in Georgia.