WOMEN LAWYERS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 52, 29 August 1925, Page 16

WOMEN LAWYERS

BIG INCOMES EARNED.

The Assistant Attorney-General of the United States of. America is a

woman, Mrs. Mabel Walker Willebrandt. She is only "35, yet has the onerous duty of enforcing Prohibition as a Federal • matter, writes Helena Normanton in the "Daily Express." I never heard nny woman speak with suoh an air of calm and unopposable authority as do.c« Mrs. Willebrandt'. But she is not in the least masculine. Wearing skirts made from men's trousering materials would not appeal to her as a demonstration of barristerial ability.

All over the Stages women lawyers of standing are making incomes which range from what an English K.C. would think good to the Sir John Simon and Mr. Upjohn standard. These incomes are not regarded as exceptional or worth talking about, for the simple reason that the men lawyers' incomes are so vast. Women are just beginning to penetrate into this most lucrative field, and I know of one of America's greatest corporations who retain ten laweysr and who have recently added a woman lawyer to their staff. She is considered to be holding her own very capably.

Probably there are several move of wjiich I do not know. The greatest income, of a sipgle woman I have encountered in private practice is £55,000; she comes from the Middle West. All income-tax statistics < are public in America, and anyone can go to view anyone else's, so there is no room for bluffing. Ova* woman, Judge Florence Allan, is, a Supreme Court Judge in Ohio, which means she has power, if need be, to pass tho death sontenco. There are many women Judges of all types of lesser Courts, and many women district attorneys entrusted with tho prosecutions of crimes in tlioir localities, and in certain other cases, such as workmen's compensation suits. Tho United States woman lawyer can make good by acting direct for the client whom she meets at the earliest stage, and her only limitations are those that time discovers in herself, added to the greater softheartedness of women, which ends them to act in more cases of hardship non-lucrative to a lawyer than men would.