Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 02.pdf/47

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32
The Green Bag.

examination, both oral and in writing, upon the required studies." Other printed commu nications have been sent me more recently concerning the " Women's Law School As sociation" connected with this school, and giving a list of " Visitors of the Law School for Women," including well-known names such as Noah Davis, LL.D., David Dudley Field, LL.D., Mrs. Jeanette Gilder, and Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi. Desirous of giving full information concerning this new venture in my paper on women lawyers, I wrote Madame Kempin, asking whether it was by incorporation or otherwise that she ad vertises to confer a degree on graduates, and asking also for the names of some of the lecturers on subjects which it could scarcely be supposed that one comparatively unused to our language, and bred to the civil rather than the common law, would herself under take to teach. I mentioned also the hope that she would be admitted to the bar of New York as soon as the rules would permit, thus establishing beyond question her knowl edge of our system of law, and asked whether the law of New York differed from ours in Massachusetts, which allows the admission as attorney at law of an alien who has made his primary declaration of inten tion to become a citizen. I casually asked also whether her title of Doctor Juris was commonly abbreviated LL.D., as she uses it. I received a letter, rather hastily written, in which she explains at length her use of the title, but entirely omits any reply to my more important questions. I wrote again repeating them, but have received no an swer, and must therefore leave them for the consideration of any who may be interested. Probably she expects an act of incorporation soon, or she may have already received one. The foregoing names by no means include all the women law students of this country,

nor all who have been admitted to the bar. There are unquestionably many of whom I have never heard, and there are a very considerable number also of whom I have heard or read, but, the limits of this paper having been reached, I am unable to give even the list of their names. Women are coming into the profession so rapidly that in a few years it will be impossible to attempt in one paper, of whatever length, to treat of the women lawyers of the United States. As it is, I have been obliged to omit much of genuine interest which I had expected to use, and to cut down every personal mention to the fewest possible words. In closing I must not neglect to say that although no question was asked in my circu lar letter of inquiry concerning the reception which women have met from the men of the profession, there have been very few replies received by me in which there has not been some word of acknowledgment of the cour tesy, kindness, and cordial helpfulness with which we have been welcomed into the legal ranks by our brothers of the bench, the bar, and the law school; and one letter expresses what I think many women have felt, when the writer says, speaking of the uniform courtesy and kindness shown towards her by both faculty and classmates, that it " was perhaps the better appreciated since it was in marked contrast to the treatment then received by ladies in the medical department of the University." In some places the public is slow to intrust legal business to women attorneys; in others it readily does so, as some of the testimony contained in this paper abundantly proves. But in time, sooner or later, the lawyer everywhere who deserves success and can both work and wait to win it, is sure to achieve it, — the' woman no less than the man.