Remembering: CA's first female lawyer, Clara Foltz
Depicted: Clara Foltz. Image in Public Domain.
In 1875, San Jose single mother Clara S. Foltz challenged CA State Bar's “male citizens” restriction, by helping to pass the “Woman Lawyer’s Bill.” Foltz went on to a successful legal career, later filing what became a SCOTUS suit against discrimination in law school admissions. Below, CCC Bar Association tells Clara Foltz's compelling story: one of hardship, opposition, and—progress.
Clara Shortridge Foltz was the first female attorney in California, a truly remarkable person, female, mother, attorney, suffragist, politician and much more; the work of Foltz is the foundation of the modern female attorney in California. …
Foltz was pregnant with her fifth child when she and her family moved in 1875, to San Jose. Soon after their move, her husband abandoned Foltz and the children for another woman, taking with him what little money they had to spend on his train fare to Oregon. Foltz divorced him and took sole custody of their five young children, an arguably rather rare occurrence in 1875. As the sole breadwinner for five children, she began earning speaking fees, lecturing on suffrage.
Determined to earn a better living, and consistent with her personal beliefs on women’s rights, she began reading law books at the office of Hon. C. C. Stephens in San Jose. Foltz soon discovered the only prerequisites to joining the California State Bar were that an applicant be a 21-year-old white male citizen of good moral character and possess the necessary “learning and ability.”
Foltz and fellow suffragist Laura deForce Gordon, publisher of a small newspaper in Northern California called the Stockton Weekly Leader (also known for giving the first suffragist speech in California on February 19, 1868), drafted the “Woman Lawyer’s Bill,” substituting “any citizen or person” for “any white male citizen” in the state code provision, C.C.P. 275. …
When the bill came to a vote in 1878, Foltz extended extraordinary effort to be present: She traveled alone overnight in the caboose of a cattle train to Sacramento without a dollar to her name, carrying only a bag of biscuits and boiled eggs for food, and surviving on nearly nothing while in Sacramento, even cooking food on a small alcohol lamp.
“The bill met with a storm of opposition such as had never been witnessed upon the floor of a California Senate,” Foltz wrote in her autobiography. Opponents said they feared that a female lawyer’s “seductive and persuasive arts” would sway juries. When they were lawyers, women would next demand to become jurors and even judges. …
The bill passed by two votes, with a final count of 37 to 35 on March 29, 1878. However, it appeared the bill was set to die on Governor William Irwin’s desk if he did not sign it by midnight April 1, 1878. Unwilling to give up, Foltz slipped past two guards, entered Governor Irwin’s office and persuaded him to sign before the pending midnight deadline.
Once the bill passed, Foltz began her studies to take the California bar exam. Despite a frenzy of publicity, Foltz passed a three-hour oral bar exam on September 4, 1878, to become California’s first female lawyer. The next day, Foltz was admitted to the California State Bar. …
Though she was already practicing law and had prevailed in numerous cases, Foltz and fellow suffragist peer Gordon enrolled with their $10 registration fee at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law in San Francisco on January 9, 1879. The women were permitted to enroll and attend, but not allowed to stay more than a few days. …
After several failed attempts to negotiate attendance, Foltz and Gordon separately filed suit against the law school; their suits were later joined, with Foltz as the named plaintiff. …
The judge agreed [with Foltz] and the women prevailed; however, the law school appealed, during which time the women were denied admission. As Foltz prepared her appellate argument, she kept practicing law and lecturing about women’s rights. …
The Supreme Court justices unanimously decided against the school in Foltz v. Hoge (1879).
By the time the law school finally permitted females to attend, Gordon had gone to law school elsewhere, and Foltz was too busy with her growing legal practice. Although she did not attend the law school, her achievement was monumental. …
Foltz’s accomplishments did not cease thereafter; she engaged in many firsts as a female in the law until her death on September 2, 1934, including: first woman to hold the position of clerk of the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly; first woman in America to serve two terms as deputy district attorney, a position she held in Los Angeles; founder of the California parole system; originator of the public defender system; the first female licensed notary public; and, in 1930, she unsuccessfully ran for governor of California at age 81. …
Despite her many accomplishments, Foltz noted at the end of her life that she viewed the Hastings lawsuit as her finest moment. Foltz was a true inspiration and a true leader setting forth the foundation for female attorneys in California today.
Read the whole thing here.
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