WLS To Celebrate Fortieth Anniversary
by Debra Roerts Ries, WLS President

Women Lawyers of Sacramento (WLS) will celebrate its fortieth anniversary at a dinner event on the evening of April 3, 2003, at the Sterling Hotel. Everyone is invited to attend an evening of celebration and revelry filled with historical anecdotes.

The anniversary dinner celebration will feature as keynote speaker Stanford University professor and noted women's legal historian Barbara Allen Babcock. Babcock will speak about the first California woman lawyer, Clara Shortridge Foltz. Foltz, born in 1849 in Lafayette, Indiana, was a widow and mother of five in 1878 when she became the first California woman lawyer in 1878. The second woman lawyer in California was Laura de Force Gordon. Foltz and Gordon worked together to gain admission to practice law through lobbying the California Constitutional Convention and a lawsuit reaching the Supreme Court. Gordon was admitted to the California Bar in 1879, the year after Foltz.

Like Foltz and Gordon, a small group of pioneering women lawyers practicing law in the Sacramento area in the early 1960's shared professional goals and interests, which were not being well served by the existing predominantly male bar associations. These pioneering women lawyers formed Women Lawyers of Sacramento to enable women lawyers to participate more effectively with other professional and civic organizations and to encourage women in the study and practice of law. The first regular meeting was held on December 19, 1962, at the Elks Club. According to the Docket, there were 41 charter members. The first officers were Frances Newell Carr (President), Peggy Flynn (Secretary), and Julie Egan (Treasurer).

In the several years that followed, when WLS events were reported by the major newspapers, they were reported on the society or women's pages and the members were referred to by their husbands' last names. However, this did not detract from the serious work undertaken by WLS. Early on, WLS had seized the opportunity to become accredited with the State Bar as a bar association and active delegation sponsoring resolutions on women's issues. The participation of a woman's bar association was clearly unusual at the time because the correspondence to the president of the WLS delegation from the State Bar always commenced "Dear Sir."

In the early sixties, there was no woman on any court in the Sacramento area. WLS committed itself to changing this. Founding members Virginia Mueller and Frances Newell Carr began a lobbying campaign. At the time, the SCBA would not even allow women on its extremely influential judiciary committee. However, as a result of the lobbying efforts of WLS, Margaret "Peggy" Flynn was appointed to the Municipal Court in 1964. In 1972, Judge Flynn's ill health forced her to retire and once more there were no women on the bench in Sacramento. WLS then promoted the appointment of Frances Newell Carr to the Sacramento Superior Court. Carr was appointed in 1975. In December 1976, Carol Miller was appointed to the Municipal Court. Later, in 1982, Alice Lytle was appointed to the Municipal Court as the first African American woman judge in Sacramento County.

The 70's had sparked a great deal of activism. In addition to its lobbying efforts, WLS began actively infiltrating the SCBA delegation and the SCBA itself. One of the great controversies of the time was the televised "great pantsuit debate" between then WLS president Barbara McCallum and Superior Court Presiding Judge Babich, where the issue of women wearing pantsuits in the courtroom was aired.

Historical anecdotes such as these will be part of the fortieth anniversary program. The celebration of WLS' fortieth anniversary is an occasion on which our legal community will have the opportunity to acquaint themselves with women's legal and WLS' history, to learn from it and celebrate it, and to express our gratitude to those who went before and paved the way for us women. We in the legal community owe them our thanks. For women today (unlike Foltz and Gordon), there is no bar to becoming an attorney. But women continue to experience obstacles to achieving their full potential - the "glass ceiling," outmoded ideas and thinking, and prejudices all present barriers. Surely, like Foltz and Gordon, we should celebrate our achievements, we should persist in our efforts to overcome barriers, and we should look to a future of equality for women. Come celebrate with us.
Tickets to the event will be $45 each or $500 for a reserved table of ten. For more information, see the back cover or contact Joan Stone at stonej48@yahoo.com.