WOMEN LAWYERS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 57, 8 March 1913, Page 10

WOMEN LAWYERS

SHUT OUT FROM THE ENGLISH BAR. At the annual meeting of 4 the Bar of England and Wales, lield at the Mid« die Temple oH 17th January, a motion by Mr. Holford Knight approving theadmission of women to membership of the Bar wa-8 defeated by an overwhelm' •ing majority, only some- thirty or forty hands being held up in its favour. Mies Ethel R. De Costa, barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, writing to the Chronicle to refute statements made at the meeting and in the press, says :—: — "Does the Law Journal maintain that the interests of justice have suffered in those many countries that have admitted women to the. Bar by reason of such admission? If it maintains this it dis* plays a craes ignorance of the presentday history of those countries ; but it, on the contrary, it does not argue thai the interests of justice have suffered in those Countries, why should they suffer for a'Bimilar reason in this country? I am a New Zealander, and as far as New Zealand is concerned I can confidently assert that the interest* of justice hays not in any . way been interfered with by the admission of women to tho Bar, and such arguments as these have, m my Dominion, been disposed of a genera ,tiqn ago. One other point I should like to mention. In your article you refer to Miss Greig, of Melbourne, Australia, as the first iady to be- admitted to the •Bar in the overseas Dominions. Permit me to say that I was the first woman admitted to the Bar in the British Empire, being called in 1897— tome eight years before Miss Greig. New Zealand < thus has the distinction of being in tho. lead in this, as also in the gi'eat«r reform of granting the vote to its women. Further. I think Canada admitted a lady to the Bar before Australia." Although women have ' not succeeded in becoming barristers in England (comments a press writer), they are working their way well into the 'other branches of the legal. profession. Several firms of solicitors employ lady clerks for responsible work, and these occasionally appear in Court ready to prompt counsel or hand him exhibits and papers. And tho up-to-date law stationer employs female labour extensively in typmg briefs and cases for opinion. But wills and leases and othei documents that require penmanship are still left to the unattached male copyist, who may be found any day propped up against the old wall of Lincoln's Inn, patiently waiting for Iho successor of Mr. Nagsby to engage him, just as Dickens described him in "Bleak House."