‘The glory of the pioneer’ AUSTRALIA’S FIRST FEMALE LAWYERS According to the Law Society of New South Wales’ annual National Profile of the Profession report, almost 52 percent of all lawyers in Australia identified as female in 2018. Yet not all too long ago, women were not permitted to enter into law school and not permitted to be admitted into the profession. Two pioneering women set on paths almost simultaneously to see that hurdle removed. Ada Evans and Flos Greig are not names that the general contemporary Australia law student cohort would be familiar with. This could reasonably be expected seeing as legal history in classrooms usually takes a back seat when Isaac Isaacs enters the room and from the get-go, the country’s future lawyers are thrown into analysing problem-based questions.
Nonetheless, having a working knowledge of legal historical tradition not only informs current and future lawyers of where they fit into the scheme of things, but provides them with the necessary springboard to identify contemporary professional gaps and pioneer further change. Evans and Greig were both British imports in the late 19th century, hailing from England and Scotland respectively. The early professional lives of these two women run almost simultaneously, separated only by Australian state. Evans was born in 1872 in Essex and in 1883 arrived in Sydney. At 27 years old, in 1899 Evans enrolled in the Sydney University Law School and was accepted under the fortuitous circumstance that the Dean at the time was on an overseas absence; otherwise she would not have been accepted. While not the first woman to enrol in law school in Australia, in 1902 Evans was the first female graduate with the LLB equivalent qualification.
