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- SISTERS
IN LAW:
- Women
pioneers of the Australian legal
profession
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- Victoria
produced the first woman to practise law. The
month following the graduation of this
State’s first female law graduate, the
government passed, after much lobbying, the so
called “Flos Greig Enabling Bill”
which would enable both herself and future women
to practise in the legal profession. After two
years of articles, Flos Greig became
Australia’s first woman solicitor on 1
August 1905.
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- However
NSW had produced Australia’s first female
law graduate, Ada Evans in 1902 but because she
was a woman she was unable to register as a
student-at-law. The NSW's Women's Legal Status
Act was not passed until sixteen years later
when, after completing articles she became the
first woman to be admitted to the NSW Bar on 12
May 1921. Unfortunately, she declined to
practise because of the lapse of time and other
commitments.
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- Tasmania
first allowed women to practise law in 1904;
Queensland 1905; South Australia 1911; and
Western Australia 1923.
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- Prejudice
against women in the legal profession continued
in the early 1920s, as witnessed by Marie
Beuzeville Byles and Sibyl Gibbs, NSW’s
first practising lawyers, who had experienced
cat-calling and foot-stomping from their male
peers during classes at Sydney’s law
school. Mary Kitson, South Australia’s
first female solicitor and later public notary
was forced to leave her old firm after her
marriage in 1924 as her partners preferred not
to work with a married woman. Consequently she
joined forces with Dorothy Somerville, forming
Australia’s first female legal
partnership.
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- The
1960s saw Australia’s first female QC, Roma
Mitchell “take silk”. She later became
the country’s first woman judge.
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- On
6 February 1976, Pat O’Shane was admitted
to the Bar - the first Aboriginal woman
barrister in Australia. Ten years later,
Lorraine Liddle became the Northern
Territory’s first Aboriginal legal
practitioner, travelling between communities as
a bush lawyer in Central Australia.
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- In
1991, Gail Owen was appointed President of the
Law Institute of Victoria - the first woman to
head this over a hundred year old, traditionally
male-run institution.
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- Some
first women in Australia's legal
profession...
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 - University
of Sydney Archives
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- ADA
EVANS (1872-1947)
- Australia’s
first female law graduate received her LL.B from
the University of Sydney in 1902 but was not
permitted to practice until 1918 becoming the
first woman to be admitted to the NSW Bar in
1921.
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 - La
Trobe Collection, State Library of
Victoria
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- (GRATA)
FLOS GREIG (1880-1958)
- Graduating
from the University of Melbourne in 1903
becoming Victoria’s first female law
graduate, she was the first woman in Australia
to enter the legal profession in
1905.
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 - The
History Trust of South
Australia
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- MARY
KITSON later MRS TENISON WOODS
(1893-1971)
- Graduating
from the University of Adelaide, she was South
Australia’s first female lawyer, admitted
to the Bar on 20 October 1917.
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 - The
Advertiser, Adelaide
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- DOROTHY
SOMERVILLE (1897-1992)
- With
Mary Tenison Woods she established
Australia’s first female legal partnership
in 1925. She was also the first female member of
SA’s Law Society and in 1937 became the
first woman practitioner to take a female
articled law clerk (her niece Sesca
Zelling).
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 - University
of Sydney Archives
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- MARIE
BEUZEVILLE BYLES (1900-1979)
- New
South Wales’ first woman solicitor
qualified in 1924 after graduating LL.B from the
University of Sydney’s law
school.
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 - University
of Sydney Archives
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- SIBYL
MORRISON (née GIBBS)
(1895-1961)
- New
South Wales’ first woman barrister
qualified in 1924 after graduating LL.B from the
University of Sydney’s law
school.
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 - The
Advertiser, Adelaide
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- ROMA
MITCHELL (b1913-2000)
- Australia’s
first woman QC in 1962, she later became the
country’s first female judge when appointed
to the Supreme Court of South Australia on 25
September 1965.
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 - Courtesy
of the Hon Elizabeth
Evatt
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- ELIZABETH
EVATT (b1933)
- Appointed
Chief Judge of the newly created Family Court of Australia in
1975, she was the first woman to preside in an Australian Federal
Court.
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 - Courtesy
of the Hon Justice Mary
Gaudron
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- MARY
GAUDRON (b1943)
- In
1987 she became the first woman Judge to the High Court in Canberra,
the highest court in the Australian judicial system.
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 - Courtesy
of the Hon Justice Deirdre
O’Connor
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- DEIRDRE
O’CONNOR (b1941)
- First
woman Federal Court Judge and President of the Administrative
Appeals tribunal. She was appointed in 1990.
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