Pioneering women lawyers

On this date in 1977, Elsijane Trimble Roy was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the first female federal judge in Arkansas history. Judging from that rather recent date, one might conclude that women have been pretty much shut out of the legal profession in Arkansas forever. That is a bit too simplistic, but gaining acceptance and equality within the legal profession has been a long and meandering journey for women. But, like most arduous quests, it has generated some interesting history.

The all-male state legislature voted in 1873 to restrict the legal profession to men only. Act 88 of that year provided “every male citizen of the age of 21 years, of good moral character, and who possesses the requisite qualifications of learning and ability, shall be entitled to practice in the courts of this state.” Efforts to change the law were unsuccessful until 1917 when women were finally admitted. This change came shortly after the legislature granted women the right to vote in primary elections.

Arkansas legal historian Frances Mitchell Ross has identified three Arkansas women whose exclusion from the legal profession “dramatized” the need for change: Lizzie Dorman Fyler of Eureka Springs and Clara McDiarmid and Erle Chambers, both of Little Rock.

Lizzie Fyler pursued her legal studies by “reading” law in a local law firm, the traditional route followed by most aspiring lawyers in the 19th Century. Despite the law, Fyler applied for admission to the bar in 1882, but she was turned down. Interestingly, in 1885 Fourth Circuit judge J. M. Pittman authorized Fyler to practice in his court, citing a constitutional provision which permitted anyone to appear in court in person, by attorney, or next best friend “and that under the latter title all the privileges of an attorney would be granted.” Fyler died shortly afterward, but not before assisting in several suits and mounting a defense in a murder case.

Clara McDiarmid was, according to her biographer in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, Arkansas’ foremost 19th-Century women’s reformer. She came to Little Rock from Kansas in 1866 to marry George W. McDiarmid, a Union Army officer stationed here. They were both abolitionists and Republicans, with George serving as Pulaski County Clerk during Reconstruction.

Some authors have credited McDiarmid with being a college-educated lawyer, but sources do not substantiate this. She did attend some law classes at the University of Michigan where her son was studying. While not allowed to practice law in Arkansas, McDiarmid still had a profound impact by serving as the first president of the Little Rock Suffrage Association. She was also a founder of the Arkansas Federation of Women’s Clubs and was a leader of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in Little Rock. In 1895 she represented Arkansas at a world temperance convention in London. Sources also indicate that McDiarmid provided free legal advice to Little Rock women.

Erle Chambers, the third pioneer, was working as a stenographer in a Little Rock law firm when she decided to attend the local University of Arkansas Law Department. After also attending the University of Chicago Law School, Chambers became a Pulaski County probation officer in 1913. She became executive secretary of the Arkansas Tuberculosis Association in 1919, serving until her death in 1941.

While Chambers never practiced law directly, she used her legal training when she was elected as the first female representative from Pulaski County in the state legislature. As a legislator she successfully sponsored a bill to improve property rights for married women.

In 1917, during what is known as the Progressive Era, Arkansas extended the vote to women and repealed its prohibition against admitting women to the practice of law. Women began entering the law school in larger numbers: two in 1917, four in 1920. By 1939, 45 women had graduated from the law school and over 100 had been admitted to the bar.

The first woman admitted to the bar in Arkansas was Sarah Shields of Hope, a graduate of the Kentucky Law School. El Dorado resident Mollie A. Burnside was one of the best educated of the early female lawyers in Arkansas. She graduated from the University of Arkansas, the Arkansas Law School, the successor to the University of Arkansas Law Department, and she took an extra law degree from Yale University in 1925.

Another well-trained early female lawyer in Arkansas was Virginia D. Moose of Morrilton, a member of a family of prominent lawyers and businessmen. She took degrees from Hendrix College and Vanderbilt University before her 1921 graduation from the Arkansas Law School. She is probably the first woman to work as an assistant state attorney general, though she spent most of her career as the chief deputy clerk of the U.S. Courts in Little Rock.

Moose was typical in her work as a court clerk since most early female lawyers did not do courtroom work. Little Rock resident Ada Marett Carter was an exception to this rule, serving for years as a deputy prosecuting attorney—though she dealt only with domestic relations cases.

While these pioneers paved the way for women lawyers, it would be the 1970s before women would emerge as full participants in the legal profession.

Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living in rural Hot Spring County. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com.