HAPPY WOMEN LAWYERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19142, 7 October 1925, Page 16

HAPPY WOMEN LAWYERS.

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. I never heard any woman speak with such an air of calm and unopposable authority as does Mrs. Willebrandt. But she is not in the least masculine. Wearing skirts made fiom men's trousering materials would not appeal to hex as <1 demonstration of banisterial ability. All over the States 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 lawyer's 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 lawyers, 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 more of which I do not know. The greatest income of a single woman which I have encountered in private practice is £55,G00; she comes from the Middle West. All in-come-tax statistics a~e public in America, and anyone can go to view anyone else s, so there is no room for bluffing. One woman, Judge Florence Allan, is _ a Supreme 'Court Judge ,in Ohio, which means she has power, if need be, to pjss the death sentence. There are many women Judges of all types of lesset Courts, and many women district attorneys entrusted with the prosecutions of crimes in their localities, and in certain other cases, such as workmen's compensation suits. The 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 leads them to act in more cases of hardship non-lucrative to a lawyer than men would.