ICYMI: Jefferson on Hidden Women of History: Flos Greig, Australia's First Female Lawyer and Early Innovator @reneeknake

ICYMI: Renee (Newman) Knake Jefferson, University of Houston Law Center, has published Hidden Women of History: Flos Greig, Australia’s First Female Lawyer and Early Innovator at The Conversation (July 23, 2019). Here is the abstract.

When Grata Flos Matilda Greig walked into her first law school class at the University of Melbourne in 1897, it was illegal for women to become lawyers. But though the legal system did not even recognize her as a person, she won the right to practice and helped thousands of other women access justice. In defying the law, Greig literally changed its face. That she did so is a story worthy of history books. And how she achieved this offers key insights for women a century later as they navigate leadership roles in the legal profession and beyond. This short essay tells her overlooked story.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link. 

Thornton on Challenging the Legal Profession a Century On: The Case of Edith Haynes @ANU_Law

Margaret Thornton, ANU College of Law, is publishing Challenging the Legal Profession a Century On: The Case of Edith Haynes in volume 44 of the University of Western Australia Law Review (2018). Here is the abstract.

This article focuses on Edith Haynes’ unsuccessful attempt to enter the legal profession in Western Australia. Although admitted to articles as a law student in 1900, she was denied permission to sit her intermediate examination by the Supreme Court of WA (In re Edith Haynes (1904) 6 WAR 209). Edith Haynes is of particular interest for two reasons. First, the decision denying her permission to sit the exam was an example of a ‘persons’ case’, which was typical of an array of cases in the English common law world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in which courts determined that women were not persons for the purpose of entering the professions or holding public office. Secondly, as all (white) women had been enfranchised in Australia at the time, the decision of the Supreme Court begs the question as to the meaning of active citizenship. The article concludes by hypothesising a different outcome for Edith Haynes by imagining an appeal to the newly established High Court of Australia.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Australian Women Judges and Lawyers Through the Archives

Heather Roberts, Australian National University College of Law, has published Telling a History of Australian Women Judges Through Courts' Ceremonial Archives at 40 Australian Feminist Law Journal 147 (2015). Here is the abstract.

Swearing-in ceremonies are held to mark the investiture of a new judge on the bench. Transcribed and stored within courts’ public records, these proceedings form a rich ‘ceremonial archive’. This paper showcases the value of this archive for the (re)telling of Australian legal history and, particularly, a history of Australian women lawyers. Using a case study drawn from the swearing-in ceremonies of women judges of the High Court, Federal Court, and Family Courts of Australia between 1993 and 2013, the paper explores what this archive reveals about the Australian legal community’s attitudes towards women in the law. It argues that despite the regional and jurisdictional differences between these courts, recurring themes emerge. Notably, while feminising discourse dominates the earlier ceremonies, stories of the judges’ personal and judicial identity come to display a more overt feminist consciousness by the end of the Labor Governments in power in Australia between 2007 and 2013.

The full text is not available from download.