Arabella Babb Mansfield challenged Iowa’s male-only bar admissions laws in 1869 and became the first woman to gain the right to practice law in the U.S. That same year, Myra Bradwell became the first woman to pass the Illinois bar, but the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1873 decision in Bradwell v. Illinois denied her license. Her efforts, however, sparked a wave of legislative changes. Illinois adjusted its laws in 1872, with Maine and Ohio opening their legal profession to women that same year. Bradwell was later admitted to the bar of Illinois but never practiced.
California admitted its first female attorney, Clara Shortridge Foltz, known as the “founder of the public defender movement,” in 1878. Women continued to fight for their right to practice law in the courts and in legislatures; by 1920, all state bars admitted women.
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