Western Women Lawyers, Defense of the Criminally Accused and the Invention of the Public Defender

Admitted to the bar in 1878, Clara Shortridge Foltz was the first woman to practice law in California, which like other western States was among the first in the nation to include women in political and public life. Ms. Foltz soon thereafter earned a reputation as a highly effective jury lawyer, continuing to practice law for fifty years. Self-consciously committed to the advancement of professional women, from 1916-18 Ms. Foltz published a magazine entitled "The New American Woman." in which she wrote a monthly column dedicated to "The Struggles and Triumphs of a Woman Lawyer."  Drawing on a variety of primary sources including contemporary newspapers, Ms. Foltz's Surviving letters, and her columns, this paper will recount some of the unique opportunities and challenges confronted by Ms. Foltz and other pioneer women lawyers in the frontier West. In particular, this paper will focus on the representation these lawyers provided to indigent criminal defendants, who often resorted to women lawyers due to their desperate need for legal counsel. In the professional life of Ms. Foltz, her criminal defense practice culminated in her successful lobbying campaign in the California legislature for the creation of state-supported defender to represent the indigent accused. The experiences of Ms. Foltz and her colleagues inform us about both the social and cultural history of the frontier West and the Subtle ways in which gender bias manifests itself and can, in turn, be surmounted.