FRENCH WOMAN LAWYER

Evening Star, Issue 20119, 8 March 1929, Page 11

FRENCH WOMAN LAWYER

OPINION OF DIVORCE Trance's first woman lawyer, Mme Suzanne Grinberg, who was admitted to the Bar in .1910, and now specialises in divorce cases, In an interview with me the other day gave to her husband all the credit of her career (states a write.; in a London daily).. “ I was very young,” she said. “ when I finished my law course, and was so self-conscious at being tho only woman in the profession that I am sure 1 never would have started practising if my husband hadn’t chided me. “This sage husband said to me: ‘And why should being a woman keep you from being a lawyer? There will soon be other women to keep you company in court.’ Of course, he was right. Now, there are almost 1,000 women lawyers in Franpe.” Few of the thousand, however, approach Mme Grinbcrg in professional standing. Sho is the only woman member of the committee of the French Bar Association. “I have had many criminal cases,” Mme Grinberg recalled. “My first five murder oases were women who had killed their husbands. 1 got four of them off. but one received a senfenoe. My friends used to accuse me laughingly of believing in murdering husband*-” In speaking of divorces, she denied that there was any feeling in Paris over people from abroad getting overnight divorces. ‘We Parisians have a fine joke about our French justice, since foreigners come hero for divorces.” she said. Mme Grinberg has her own ideas about divorces. She said; “Women ask for divorces too easily, I think. There is no patience left in the world. “Girls come into my office and say to me: ‘My husband and I quarrelled last night. I want a divorce.’ I say, if they really want a divorce, I will lake the ease, butvwhy not wait, try to be patient, adjust themselves: a little, try to get along. There is far too little 'consideration and patience In many modern marriages.” Mme Grinbcrg’s career does not entirely • consume her life. She and her husband and their fi'lean-.w’v old sou live a busy •aciw Ufa n*. ; Parc.