5 minute read
A Century of Women in the Legal Profession
A century seems like a very long time. It feels implausible that women in the legal profession were quite rare one hundred years ago, and that those women known to us today as trailblazers in the law can often be found in our contacts, speaking on panels at conferences, or featured in current law articles. A historical perspective illustrates the nascent development of women in Tennessee law.
In 1869, Arabella Babb Mansfield was the first woman admitted to the practice of law in the United States, despite Iowa’s prohibition against women taking the bar exam. After a court challenge, Iowa changed its licensing rules, becoming the first state to allow women and minorities bar admission; however, Mrs. Mansfield never practiced law, working as an educator and suffragist.
Not quite 30 years later, the U. S. Supreme Court decided Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), affirming segregation as the law of the land. The Court held, “Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences, and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the difficulties of the present situation. If the civil and political rights of both races be equal one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.”1 The very next year, however, a Shelby County judge admitted the first African American female attorney, Lutie Lytle, to the Tennessee bar,2 and Lytle is reputed to be the first female law professor at Central Tennessee University in 1898. The first woman to actively engage in the practice of law in Tennessee was Marion Griffin, who lobbied the General Assembly to remove the male only qualifier for bar admission. She was admitted to practice in 1907 by the Tennessee Supreme Court and in 1923, became the first woman to serve in the General Assembly.3 She was elected shortly after Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment that prohibited the denial of the right to vote on the basis of sex, effective August 26, 1920.
While Marion Griffin forged ahead with her law practice, President Woodrow Wilson undid 50 years of post-Civil war reconstruction by instituting segregation in the federal government and screening D.W. Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation at the White House in 1915. Wilson, along with the film’s success, are credited with fueling the re-emergence of the Klu Klux Klan in the 1920s. Against this backdrop, Tennessee saw Judge Camille Kelley become the first female judge in 1920, serving in Shelby County Family Court despite never having been admitted to the bar.
While women practiced law over the ensuing 75 years, it was not until 1978, more than 50 years after the 19th Amendment’s passage, that Nancy Sorak became the first elected female judge in Shelby County. Judge Julia Smith Gibbons was the first woman to serve on a state trial court, having been appointed by Governor Lamar Alexander in 1981.4 Chancellor Sharon Bell was elected in 1986 as the first female chancellor in the state and first female judge on a court of record in East Tennessee.
It was not until 1990, some 93 years after Lutie Lytle was admitted to the bar, that Justice Martha Craig Daughtrey became the first woman seated on the Tennessee Supreme Court (following 15 years of service at the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals).5 Despite the long delay in seating women on Tennessee’s highest court, the state soon had a majority of women justices. Janice Holder was appointed in 1996,6 and then became the first Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court in 2008. Justice Sharon Lee was appointed the same year, serving until her retirement in 2023.7 Justice Cornelia Clark was confirmed in 2005, and she, too, served as Chief Justice from 2010 to 2012,8 remaining on the Court until her death in 2021. Justice Holly Kirby was confirmed in 2014, having been the first woman to serve on the Tennessee Court of Appeals in 1995. Governor Lee appointed Justice Sarah Campbell, confirming her to the Supreme Court on February 10, 2022. On September 1, 2023, Justice Kirby was elected Chief Justice.9
Nationally, women constitute 38.3% of the legal profession as of 2022, up by five percent from a decade earlier.10 Historically, the numbers for women in the profession have changed significantly: between 1950 and 1970, only 3% of all attorneys were women.11 To put the current percentage in perspective, roughly one in three attorneys are women, and more women than men were enrolled in law school in 2021.12 More than 40% of all law school deans are now women.13 Despite the progress, women continue to face pay disparities and represent less than 23% of equity partners in firms, among other barriers when compared to their male counterparts. Recent female bar admittees may not realize that their “trailblazers” are members of their local bar associations rather than women from the early 20th century.
While progress has been significant for women in the legal profession, it took more than a century to get to where they are today. And yes, a century is indeed a very long time.
Endnotes
1 Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 551-52
2 https://www.tba.org/index.cfm?pg=LawBlog&blAction=showEntry&blogEntry=32259; https://www. tncourts.gov/sites/default/files/docs/womens_milestones_three.pdf see also, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, The Promise of Lutie A. Lytle: An Introduction to the Tenth Annual Commemorative Lutie A. Lytle Black Women Law Faculty Workshop Iowa Law Review Issue, in 102 Iowa Law RevIew 1843 (2017).
3 https://memphislibrary.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/ collection/p13039coll1/id/329/; https://www.tncourts. gov/sites/default/files/docs/womens_milestones_ three.pdf
4 https://tncourts.gov/press/2021/10/07/tennessee%E2%80%99s-first-female-trial-judge-bestowed-american-judiciary%E2%80%99s-high -
est-honor
5 https://www.tncourts.gov/news/2021/03/26/tennessee-women-bench-history-firsts
6 https://www.tncourts.gov/press/2008/09/29/bredesen-appoints-sharon-gail-lee-tennessee-supremecourt
7 https://www.tncourts.gov/courts/supreme-court/ judges/sharon-g-lee
8 https://www.tncourts.gov/press/2010/08/09/cornelia-clark-be-sworn-chief-justice
9 https://www.tncourts.gov/courts/supreme-court/ justices
10 https://www.abalegalprofile.com/demographics. php#anchor2
11 Id.
12 https://www.abalegalprofile.com/women.php
13 Id. n
