Women's Bar Association of Illinois

History: WBAI Firsts

Myra Bradwell
In 1869, Bradwell was one of the first two women in the United States to apply for admission to their state bars. Illinois denied her request because it did not permit married women to practice law. (Iowa became the first state to admit a woman, Belle Mansfield, who became the first woman admitted to practice law in the U.S.)

Ada Kepley
In 1870, by special permission of a judge, Kepley became the first woman in Illinois and the U.S. to practice in a court of law. That year she was also the first woman in Illinois and in the United States to receive a law degree. However, in those years, Illinois refused to grant women licenses to practice law.

Alta M. Hulett
In 1873 Hulett became the first woman admitted to the Illinois Bar.

Ellen Annette Martin
In 1891, Martin became the first woman to vote in the State of Illinois; using a loophole in the Lombard town charter. This 1875 law school graduate who was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1875/1876 also led other women to vote at a time when suffrage in Illinois was restricted to men.

Ida Platt
In 1894, Platt became the first Black woman admitted to practice law in Illinois.

Cora B. Hirtsel
In 1897, Hirtsel became the first woman appointed Assistant Corporation Counsel of the City of Chicago, having both graduated from law school and admitted to the Illinois bar in 1890. (Records show she was a member of WBAI in 1932.)

Sophonisha Breckinridge
In 1904, Breckinridge became the first woman to graduate from the University of Chicago Law School.

Catherine McCulloch
In 1907, McCulloch became Illinois' first woman Justice of the Peace thereby making her the first woman to serve in any judicial capacity in Illinois; she was elected to be Justice of the Peace in Evanston.  McCulloch was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1889 and was the President of the WBAI from 1916-1920.

Mary Bartelme
In 1923, Bartelme was the first woman to be elected a judge in Illinois.  Bartelme was the President of the WBAI from 1927-1928.

Edith Sampson
In 1927, having been born in 1898, Sampson became the first woman to earn a Master of Laws from Loyola University's Graduate Law School. In 1950, she was the first African American named delegate to the United Nations. In 1962, she was the first black woman elected judge of the Chicago Municipal Court.

Zita J. Stone
Stone was the first woman public defender appointed by the City of Chicago.  Stone was licensed to practice law in Illinois in 1928.

Helen Walter Munsert
Munsert was the first woman to serve as attorney and hearing examiner for the Illinois Commerce Commission.  She was also the first woman to serve as director of the Chicago Regional Chapter of the Association of Interstate Commerce Commission Practitioners.  Munsert was admitted to practice law in Illinois in 1935.

Elsa C. Beck
Beck was the first woman elected to the American Bar Association's Section's Council through the ABA's Section of Real Property, Probate and Trust Law.  It may seem insignificant now, but a woman attaining this kind of recognition was an important achievement in the past and one that they put in their resumes.  Beck served as President of the WBAI from 1936-1937.

Helen Kelleher
A 1938 law school graduate, Kelleher became the first woman to become an assistant judge in the county's Probate Division.

Alice Bright
This 1941 law school graduate was the first woman hired at Sidley & Austin, and eventually, when made a partner, became the first woman made partner in a large Chicago law firm.  Bright served as President of the WBAI from 1955-1956.

Adeline Jay Geo-Karis
A 1942 law school graduate, and that class' only female member to graduate, having been born in 1918, in Greece, Geo-Karis was the first woman to hold the position as Dean of the Senate, having served the 31st District since 1979. She was the first woman in Illinois history ever to serve in Senate leadership; she served for 10 years as Assistant Senate Majority Leader from 1993 to 2003.  She was also the first Lake County woman ever elected to the Senate and House, was the first Lake County woman appointed as Assistant State's Attorney and was the first woman elected as Justice of the Peace in Lake County.

Antonia Rago Herbert
In 1945, after being admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1938, Herbert became the first woman to challenge the Board of Election’s requirement that a woman use her husband’s last name when registering to vote, an issue the Supreme Court of Illinois ruled was a constitutional issue that deserved a hearing on the merits.

Jeanne Brown Gordon
Gordon was the first woman hearing officer for the Illinois Dept. of Registration and Education.  She was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1936, initiated the WBAI Newsletter in 1945, and served as President of the WBAI from 1949-1950.

Florence Wissig Dunbar
After opening her private law practice in 1946, Dunbar became the first woman to obtain a PhD in Business/Economics from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT).

Jewel Rogers (Lafontant-Mankarious)
In 1946, Rogers was the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Chicago Law School.  In 1955, she was the first black woman to be named Assistant U.S. Attorney.  In 1973, President Nixon appointed her to be the first woman Deputy Solicitor General of the United States.

Katherine D. Agar
In 1961, Agar became the first female income partner at the Chicago law firm, McDermott, Will & Emery.  In 1964, she became the first female capital partner.  Agar was the President of the WBAI from 1947-1948.

Soia Mentschikoff
In 1947, this 1937 law school graduate was the first woman Dean at the University of Miami Law School and in 1951 was the first woman to teach at Harvard Law School.

Bess Sullivan Heptig
Heptig was the first woman Cook County Assistant State's Attorney.  Heptig was the President of the WBAI from 1951-1952.

Eleanor Guthrie
In 1952, this 1940 law school graduate, became the first woman to be named partner at Defrees and Fiske and the second woman to be named a partner in a large Chicago law firm.  Guthrie served as President of the WBAI from 1950-1951.

B. Fain Tucker
In 1953, Tucker was the second woman to be elected a Cook County Circuit Court judge, later becoming the first woman to serve as a Judge in the Cook County Criminal Court.  Tucker served as President of the WBAI from 1941-1942.

Katherine Nohelty
In 1956, Nohelty became the first woman elected to Chicago’s Municipal Court.  Nohelty served as President of the WBAI from 1945-1946.

Jeanne Hurley Simon
In 1960, Simon, wife of then Illinois Representative Paul Simon, was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, and became the first member of a husband-wife team in the history of the Illinois General Assembly.  Her husband Paul Simon later became a U.S. Senator.  Simon served as the President of the WBAI from 1959-1960.

Ingrid Beall
In 1961, this 1956 law school graduate became the first woman partner at Baker & McKenzie. Fluent in French, she was the first woman to practice law for the firm in France, when she opened its Paris office. After she left the firm, she filed a breach-of-contract suit in 1991, alleging age and gender discrimination.

Esther Rothstein
The first woman to serve as director of the Illinois Bell Telephone Company, was the first woman trustee of IIT, the first woman to chair an ABA committee: the Gavel Awards and the first women to serve as the President of the Chicago Bar Association. Rothstein served as President of the Chicago Bar Association from 1977-1978 and the WBAI from 1961-1962.

Martha A. Mills
After her 1965 law school graduation, Mills became the first woman associate with White & Case, a prominent New York law firm.  In 1989, she was the second Illinois woman to be inducted into the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Marijane Placek
Placek was the First woman President of the Coalition of Suburban Bar Associations.

Katheryn E. Zenoff
After entering Columbia Law School in 1968, Zenoff became the first female law student at Columbia Law School to be part of the International Fellow Program.

Chloe Arlan
As a result of Tala Engle's 1970 federal law suit, this 1969 law school graduate became one of two of the first women attorneys to appear in the Chicago Bar Association’s "Christmas Spirits."  Arlan was also the first woman to Chair the CBA Entertainment Committee. It may seem insignificant now, but a woman attaining a bar association committee chairmanship was an important achievement in the past and one that they put in their resumes.

Tala Engle
Following her 1970 federal lawsuit against the Chicago Bar Association for discrimination against women for excluding them from CBA activities, Engle became one of the two first female attorneys to appear in the CBA's Christmas Spirits. Engle was admitted to the bar in 1957.

Magistrate Olga Jurco
In 1971, this 1938 law school graduate became the first woman federal judicial officer to serve in the 7^th Federal Circuit when appointed a United States Magistrate.

Mary Hazel Crawford
Crawford was the first woman to be elected President of the Federal Bar Association (Chicago Chapter). She was also the first woman to be Head of the Legal Division of the Bureau of Public Debt of the U.S. Treasury Department in Chicago.

Helen Thatcher
In 1973, this 1948 John Marshall law school graduate became its first woman Assistant Dean and in 1975, its first female Associate Dean.  Thatcher was the first woman to serve on the Board of Directors of the Executive Club of Chicago and the University Club of Chicago.

Judge Ilana Rovner
In 1974, this 1963 law school graduate who was born in Latvia, and was Federal Judge James B. Parson's first female law clerk, became the first woman supervisor in the history of the U.S. Attorney's Office. In 1984 she became a U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois and thereafter was appointed the first woman to sit in the U.S. Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit.

Judge Helen Mc Gillicuddy
In 1976, this 1949 law school graduate became the first woman elected as Judge of the First District Appellate Court.  She served as President of the WBAI from 1960-1961.

Judge Carole Bellows
In 1977, this 1960 law school graduate became the first woman to serve as President of the Illinois Bar Association.

Susan Getzendanner
In 1980, President Carter appointed Getzendanner the first female Federal Judge in Illinois.

Nina S. Appel
In 1983, this 1956 law school graduate who was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, became the first woman Dean of Loyola Law School.

Judge Helen Kinney
Kinney was the first woman appointed to the bench in DuPage County.

Charlotte Adelman
In 1985, Adelman became the first woman President of the North Suburban Bar Association.  She also won the first case of sex discrimination in employment against a woman filed in the Illinois Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC), thus enabling a woman to work as a dog catcher. Additionally, she was the first to successfully negotiate a divorce settlement gaining her client half of her ex-husband’s $1 million Nobel Prize.  Adelman served as President of the WBAI from 1984-1985.

Jennifer Duncan-Brice
In 1985, after being admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1976, Duncan-Brice became the first woman supervisor of cases and day to day operations in the Chicago Corporation Council's Office in Chicago.

Judge Allen Rosin
In 1982, Judge Allen Rosin became the first male member of the WBAI.

Ralla Klepak
The first woman civilian attorney to try a major criminal matter before full court martial proceeds at Great Lakes Navel Training Station, Court of Military Appeals.

Ilene F. Wolf
In 1987, Wolf became the first woman President of the Northwest Suburban Bar Association.  She was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1975.

Judge Anne Burke
In 1987, having been admitted to the Illinois bar in 1983, Illinois Governor James Thompson, appointed Burke as the first woman judge on the Illinois Court of Claims.

Aurelia Puchinski
In 1988, Puchinski became the first female Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County.

Lynne Kawamoto
In 1989, Kawamoto became the first candidate recommended by the Asian-American Bar association to be the first Asian-American Judge in Illinois.

Arnette R. Hubbard
Hubbard became the first woman to serve as President of the National Bar Association and of the Cook County Bar Association.  Hubbard was admitted to the Illinois Bar in 1969.  In 2001, she became the first woman inducted into the Scroll of Distinguished Women Lawyers by the National Bar Association in commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of her presidency of that organization.

Rita Frye
Frye was the first female Public Defender in Cook County.

Ann Williams
Williams was the first African American woman to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Miriam Santos
In 1989, this 1980 law school graduate, became the first woman to serve as City Treasurer of Chicago.

Dawn Clark Netsch
In 1991, this 1952 law school graduate became the first woman elected to a state wide office, namely Comptroller of Illinois.  In 1994, she was the first woman nominated by a major political party to run for Governor of Illinois.

Carol Moseley Braun
In 1993, having been admitted to the Illinois bar in 1973, Braun became the first African-American woman elected to the United States Senate, the first woman to defeat an incumbent senator in an election, and the first female senator from Illinois. She was also the first female Recorder of Deeds of Cook County.

Theodora (Teddie) Gordon
In 1997, this 1947 law school graduate, became the first woman President of the Decalogue Society of Lawyers. Gordon served as President of the WBAI from 1964-1965.

Judge Mary Ann G. McMorrow
In the 1960s, McMorrow was the first woman Assistant State's Attorney to prosecute felony cases in Cook County. After being elected to the Appellate Court in 1986, she was the first woman elected to serve as chairperson of the Executive Committee of the Appellate Court. In 1992, she was the first woman in its 173 year history to be elected to the Supreme Court of Illinois. In 2002, when elected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois, she became the first woman to head any of the three branches of state government.  McMorrow was admitted to the practice of law in Illinois in 1953.  She served as President of the WBAI from 1974-1975.

Elsie Holzwarth
In 1991, Holzwarth was the first editor of the WBAI Newsletter to be awarded a journalistic prize: Chicago Women in Publishing, Award of Excellence, First Place, Relevance to Women's Issues.

Lisa Madigan
In 2003, this 1985 law graduate became the first female Attorney General for Illinois.

Continue to Past WBAI Presidents >>