First to Enroll

FIRST TO

ENROLL

ELIZABETH TOMPKINS AND THE LAW CLASS OF 1923 R ose May Davis, Catherine Lipop, and Elizabeth Tompkins ’23 entered UVA Law in 1920 after meeting higher admission standards than those required of their male counterparts. Female applicants had to hold a B.A. or be 22 years old; male applicants had to complete only one year of college and be at least 18. In 1922 and during their second year, Tompkins and Davis were two of the first three women to pass the Virginia bar exam. Both earned perfect scores. Davis left UVA Law after passing the bar to begin private practice, but Tompkins remained to complete her degree and became the first woman to graduate from the Law School in 1923.

LIFE AT LAW

While the first women law students excelled in the classroom, the social component of legal studies remained closed to them. At legal fraternities—where Tompkins and her female peers had no seat—male students studied and built friendships. In an April 1921 letter to her father, Tompkins rued the barriers she still faced as a woman law student.

“There has been, and there is, no one to argue with when I leave class at noon. I have no Law afterwards. I can only dig it by reading, and only understanding one half at that. The boys at practically every fraternity have a round table and discuss Law every night for an hour. Of that I know nothing.”

Tompkins impressed Dean William Minor Lile, though he still doubted she would ever succeed as a lawyer. Tompkins wrote to Lile in 1924 about her frustrations with trying to find a job after graduation. Lile encouraged Tompkins to open her own law firm, but believed she would always be “handicapped on account of her sex.” In his private diary, Lile remarked: “It will not be long before she deserts the profession of law and takes up that of wife & mother—rolling a baby carriage instead of wrangling in court—a much more suitable & seemly occupation for a woman.” Defying his expectations, Tompkins did open a law office in Richmond with a focus on estate planning, chancery, and civil litigation. She worked there for 54 years, eventually earning the local moniker “dean” of the city’s women lawyers.

ROSE MAY DAVIS joined her brother’s law practice after passing the Virginia bar exam her 2L year. She later earned her PhD in chemistry at Duke – where she was the first women to earn a doctorate – went on to teach the subject at Randolph-Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia. CATHERINE LIPOP, the Law School’s librarian, enrolled in 1920 as a non-degree student. She took classes until 1923 and served as law librarian until 1946. Dean Lile described Lipop as “efficient,” “intelligent,” and “indefatigable.”

ELIZABETH TOMPKINS ’23 clerked for two years after graduation and then entered private practice in Richmond, Virginia, where she had a successful 54year legal career.