Margaret Brent who became the executor of the estate of Lord Calvert, governor of the Maryland colony, in 1638 was the first woman to practice law in America. (Morello, 1986)

Arabella Mansfield was the first woman to be admitted to the bar (in Iowa) in 1869. (Morello, 1986)

Charlotte E. Ray who was the daughter of leaders of New York’s underground railroad was the first African-American woman to be admitted to the bar in 1872. (Siemsen, 2006)

Myra Bradwell who was denied admittance to the bar in Illinois in 1872 appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court which denied her appeal saying:

“The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sexevidently unfits it for the practice of law. . . . [Additionally] a woman has nolegal existence separate from her husband . . . [so that] . . . a married woman is incapable, without her husband’s consent, of making contracts which shall be binding on her or him, whereas unmarried women are “exceptions to the general rule” of marriage.” (Morello, 1986)

Lavinia Goodell’s admittance to the bar in 1895 was opposed by Chief Justice C. J. Ryan of the Wisconsin Supreme Court who said:

“Nature has tempered women as little for the judicial conflicts of the courtroom as for the physical conflicts of the battlefield. . . . Our. . . profession has essentially . . . to do with all that is selfish and extortionate, knavish and criminal, coarse and brutal, repulsive and obscene in human life. It would be revolting to all female sense of innocence and the sanctity of their sex.” (Epstein, 1993)

It was only in 1920 that women could practice law in all the states of the US.

Source: ‘Doing Justice, Doing Gender’ by Susan Ehrlich Martin and Nancy Jurik