Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 02.pdf/32

 Women Lawyers in the United States. Burlingame opened her office for practice in Joliet, her home, in January, 1888, since which time she has had a remarkable degree of success, business coming in much more rapidly than a newly fledged lawyer can ever reasonably expect. Her practice has been varied in nature, including considerable civil work in the Circuit Court and a little crimi nal work. She has had clients from several different counties, and has been consulted on legal matters by parties in distant States.

Some of the cases which she has success fully handled before court or jury have been important ones, and she now has, among others, a con test pending on the construction of a trust deed, involving sev eral legal points which have never been de cided in Illinois. It may be of interest to those who question whether a woman's strength, physical and mental, is equal to the strain of a legal prac tice, to mention that CATHARINE Miss Burlingame's friends were very anx ious when she opened her office, because she had always had, as she writes me, " the weakest constitution ever given to mortal; but legal practice agreed with me, I continu ally grew stronger, gained fifteen pounds in weight in six months, and now enjoy the best health I ever had." The Law School of the Michigan Univer sity, located at Ann Arbor, has graduated more women than any other in the country; but my facts concerning some of these ladies are meagre, owing to my inability to get the list of their names in season to correspond with all of them. The greater part of the information which I have concerning them 3

17

was very kindly furnished me by Miss Martha K. Pearce, at present resident in Chi cago, who is herself a graduate of the school of the class of 1883, and a member of the Michigan Bar, but who has devoted herself to literary rather than professional work. As Secretary of the Equity Club, Miss Pearce is well informed concerning the graduates of her school and women lawyers generally; and before proceeding further, a word right here concerning the Equity Club may be in place. This society origi nated at Ann Arbor in the fall of 1886, when it chanced that seven women were attending lectures at the law school there, and two women who had graduated were still resident in the place. From a local club for personal meet ing, it became a cor respondence club, which women lawyers and law students everywhere have been invited to join. Some forty in all have been G. WAUGH. members of the club; and the "Equity Club Annual," consisting of letters from members and restricted to private circulation among members only, is a most interesting and valuable yearly visitant, making us better known to each other, and extending to each the sympathy and fellowship of other women of similar tastes and experiences. The first woman to enter the Law Depart ment of Michigan University was Miss Sara Kilgore, who had previously studied one year in the Chicago Law School and then entered the school at Ann Arbor, where she graduated in March, 1871, thus being the second woman in the country to receive the degree of LL.B. Miss Kilgore was admitted