The following is a brief summary of the history of women in the law in New Zealand. It does not purport to be exhaustive and we would be very interested in any comments on the article - and particularly any further information of interest, either about the women mentioned or those who are not mentioned but whose contribution should be considered for inclusion. Please contact us to convey this information - Women's Consultative Group.
Over the years, generations of lawyers have been taught to rely on the conventions and decisions of the past rather than to look to the future which may explain why it has taken women in the law longer to be accepted than those in other professions.1
In the latter part of the twentieth century some women lawyers have risen to the highest possible positions of standing and authority in the law, government and the community. However, their success may only have been made possible by the women who went before them and who took a stand against prevailing opinion and precedent.
At the end of the nineteenth century, women lawyers faced not only intolerant male colleagues but also a society that viewed the prospect of women practising law as, at best, eccentric, and, at worst, abhorrent. Yet a few brave women chose to challenge the mores of the time.
In May 1897 Ethel Benjamin became the first woman to be admitted to the New Zealand Bar. However, it had not been until she was in her third year of study for an LLB degree at the University of Otago that the Female Law Practitioners Act 1896 was passed which enabled her to become the first woman to practise law in New Zealand. The Act stated:
Whereas women are now prevented by statute from exercising their talents in the study and practice of the law, and it is desirable that such disabilities shall no longer continue . . . any woman of the age of twenty-one years and upwards may be enrolled as a barrister or solicitor on passing the examinations required to be passed by males, and on payment of the fees and compliance with the law in that behalf.
Ethel's request to use the law library had caused problems for the gentlemen of the Otago District Law Society. The Society resolved that she could only use the Supreme Court Library if she was separated from the men and so she was given a permit to read in the Judge's Chamber Room.2 Her presence at the opening of the Dunedin law courts in 1902 also proved an embarrassment, with none of the profession wanting to be paired with her in the procession of lawyers to the court entrance. However, J M Galloway finally came to the rescue and walked with her.3
After her admission Ethel managed her own practice in litigation and commercial work in Dunedin and had a number of women clients who sought her advice on their investments in property and shares. Her first court appearance on 17 September 1897 was probably the first time a woman lawyer had appeared as counsel in the British Empire. In 1910 she went to England where she joined a law firm, but she could not practise fully until after the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act was passed in 1919 and eventually she moved away from legal practice.4
Other women who followed Ethel Benjamin also struggled to get a start in the law. In 1898 Geraldine Hemus became the first woman articled clerk in Auckland when she began work with the sole practitioner C J Parr. She was admitted to the Bar in 1907 and eventually ran her own practice.
One year earlier, in 1906, Ellen Melville had become the second New Zealand woman to be admitted to the Bar.5 She began her legal studies in Auckland in 1899 and was employed by Devore and Cooper as an articled clerk. Later, she also ran her own practice and undertook commercial work for women's organisations such as incorporation of societies, commercial conveyancing and advising on rent contracts and leases. In 1913 she also became New Zealand's first woman city councillor when she was elected to the Auckland City Council and was the longest serving member of Auckland City Council when she died in 1946.
By 1911 only one of the 228 law students was a woman (0.4%) and three of the 950 lawyers were women (0.3%) but 202 of the 1292 law clerks were women (15.6%), although only one was articled.6
Unsurprisingly, during World War I the number of men in legal practice dropped sharply. However, unlike medicine where women were confident that projected shortages would ensure later employment, women in law were not so optimistic. By 1916, 1,104 women were employed in law offices (over one-third of those working in the legal profession)7 but, only three were lawyers and none were articled clerks. At that time male students who studied in evenings and worked as clerks by day were nearly twice as likely as their women counterparts to earn £4 per week. Women were more likely to earn £2 per week.8
Harriet Vine was admitted to the Bar in 1915 and was the first woman to obtain an LLM. Two years earlier she had joined the Wanganui firm of Treadwell & Gordon and she remained employed by the firm as a qualified law clerk, for 40 years.9
Even with family connections, women struggled for a start as a lawyer. Margaret Mackay worked as a junior typist in her uncle's Oamaru law firm, Grave & Grave and studied law by correspondence. In 1929, she became the second woman, after Ethel Benjamin, to be admitted to the Bar in Dunedin10 and was subsequently promoted to the position of managing clerk.11 In 1946, 17 years after her admission, she became a partner in Lee, Grave & Zimmerman, but opposition from one partner was so strong that her name was not added to the partnership list until he retired in 1961.
Many women experienced similar opposition and inevitably the Depression made the situation worse. In 1932 poor employment prospects prompted Otago University to warn law students not to enrol and between 1932 and 1939, the number of women law students dropped from 22 to 1012 while the number of male law students fell from 412 to 359.
Elizabeth Urquhart began studying for her LLB in 1935 and in November 1944 she became the first woman in the Hamilton District to open a law practice on her own account. She worked in conveyancing, estates and the Maori Land Court and in 1961, with Patricia Lee, she formed the first all-woman law partnership in New Zealand, practising in Rotorua.13
The secondary status of women's work was confirmed by the Arbitration Court's 1936 declaration of a general wage order, which fixed a basic female rate of £116 and a basic male rate of £316. This order was not repealed until 1954.14
In 1939, there were 24 women in New Zealand with law degrees and, at most, 14 women in practice15 but the outbreak of World War II provided new opportunities for many women law clerks and lawyers.
By the end of the World War II 15 of the 317 law students were women (4.7%) and 19 of the 1455 lawyers were women (1.3%).
Following World War II, society's slowly growing recognition of women in some professions was not reflected in the attitudes of most men in the law and female participation in the workforce was still not generally encouraged. In 1956 Dame Hilda Ross, then Minister of Social Welfare, said "Married women with children should wake up to their responsibilities in the home and stay at home".16
In the late 1940s Alison Quentin-Baxter (nee Souter) was one of the few women studying law at Auckland University and in her fourth year she became the first woman to chair the Law Students' Society. After admission in 1952 she began a career in the public service with the Department of External Affairs, becoming head of its legal division at 26 years old and New Zealand's representative on the United Nations General Assembly's Legal Committee. In 1987, she was appointed the first director of the New Zealand Law Commission, a position she held until her retirement in 1995.
Dame Augusta Wallace (nee Dunlop) also studied at Auckland University in the early 1950s and was admitted in 1953. She went on to become a sole practitioner in South Auckland and in September 1975 she became the first woman to become a judge when she was appointed to the District Court bench.
When Margaret Vennell enrolled to study law at Otago University in 1952 she was the only woman in the class and was barred from some of the Criminal Law Lectures. She finished her degree at Victoria and was admitted in 1959, working for Robin Cooke (now Lord Cooke of Thorndon) and then for the government before joining the Law Faculty at Auckland University in 1967. In 1992 she was the first woman to be appointed Associate Professor at the university before retiring in early 2001.
In 1953, while Shirley Smith was a student at Victoria University, she succeeded in getting women entry to the Law Faculty Club annual dinner from which women were usually excluded. At that time women were not admitted to the dinners, either of the Wellington District Law Society or the New Zealand Law Society's triennial conferences.17 In 1959 she became the first woman legal academic on a university staff when she began lecturing in Roman Law and then Constitutional Law at Victoria University and she was the first woman to edit the Victoria University Law Review. In 1961 she went into sole practice.
Anne Gambrill (nee Shorland) was admitted to the Bar in 1958 and practised as a barrister in Auckland before being the first woman to be appointed a Master of the High Court in August 1987.
The post-war baby boom and a focus on motherhood deflected many women from law and in 1956, 32 of the 850 law students were women (3.8%) and 28 of the 1945 lawyers were women (1.4%).18
The 1960s brought a change in attitude with the start of the women's liberation movement and women being encouraged to return to the workforce. However, despite the more liberal atmosphere, women law students and academics were still relatively rare.
In 1961 Nadja Tollemache was one of the first few women legal academics, teaching Jurisprudence, Legal History and Comparative Law at Auckland University following a distinguished career at Oxford, practise at the Bar in London and holding a Bigelow Teaching Fellowship at the University of Chicago. She went on to become Ombudsman in 1987 and later became the first Banking Ombudsman.
Dame Silvia Cartwright (nee Poulter) began studying law at Otago University in 1961, spending most of her time at university as the only woman law student. In 1967 she became the first woman law graduate at Otago for 30 years.19 She worked in private law firms in Dunedin and Rotorua, and then joined Harkness Henry & Co where she was made partner in 1972. Nine years later, she became the second woman to be appointed to the District Court when she took her place on the Family Court Bench.
In 1987 Dame Silvia headed the inquiry into the treatment of cervical cancer at National Women's Hospital20 and in 1989 she became Chief District Court Judge. The same year she was elected to serve on the United Nations Committee which monitors compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and she served for two four-year terms.21 In July 1993, she was the first woman to be appointed a High Court Judge and in April 2001, she became the second woman to be sworn in as Governor-General of New Zealand.
Judith Potter studied law at Auckland University and was admitted in 1964. After working as a successful commercial lawyer and senior partner at Kensington Swan in Auckland she became the first woman president of the Auckland District Law Society in 1988. Three years later she became the first woman president of the New Zealand Law Society and for the first two years of her presidency, she was the only woman among 28 men on the Council. She was appointed to numerous public and private boards including the New Zealand Law Foundation and in 1994 she established the Women's Consultative Group of the New Zealand Law Society. In May 1997 she was appointed a High Court Judge.
Dame Sian Elias studied law in the late 1960s with six other women, completing her degree at Auckland University in 1970. She went on to practise as a solicitor and later as a barrister, specialising in Treaty of Waitangi jurisprudence.22 Between 1984 and 1989 she was a Law Commissioner and in April 1988 she and Lowell Goddard were appointed as New Zealand's first women Queen's Counsel. In September 1995 she was appointed a High Court Judge and between 1998 and 1999 she was warranted to sit on the Court of Appeal. In 1999, she was appointed Chief Justice.
In 1966, 84 of the 1540 law students were women (5.5%) and 31 of the 2366 lawyers in practice were women (1.3%).
During the last three decades of the twentieth century the number of women in the profession increased substantially and many have achieved recognition in their own fields.
In 1972 Judith Mayhew became the first woman appointed to the Otago University Faculty of Law when she became an Assistant Lecturer. She went on to hold posts at King's College, London and in 1999 she was appointed special adviser to the Chairman of Clifford Chance, an international law firm with 3,500 lawyers in 29 countries. She is presently the first women to hold the post of political leader of the City of London which is the world's premier international finance centre and contributes 8% to the United Kingdom's GDP.
During this time women with law degrees also made their way into politics. Georgina Te Heuheu, who was admitted to the Bar in 1972 and was the first Maori woman lawyer, was Minister for Courts and Minister for Women's Affairs in the 1996 National Government.
Ruth Richardson, who was admitted to the Bar in 1973, worked as a Legal Adviser for the Department of Justice and Federated Farmers before moving to politics in 1981. She became the first woman Minister of Finance in the Commonwealth and was ranked fourth in the National Government Cabinet of 1990-93.23
Dame Ann Hercus who completed her law degree in the early 1970s was the first Minister for Women's Affairs and the world's first woman Minister of Police between 1984 and 1987. In 1988 she was appointed New Zealand's permanent representative to the United Nations.24
Margaret Wilson was the first woman to become president of the Labour Party, the first woman to become Professor of Law and in 1990 she was the Foundation Dean of Waikato University Law School.25 When the Labour-Alliance Coalition Government was elected in 1999 she became Attorney-General and Minister of Labour, Treaty Settlements and State Services, and Deputy Minister of Justice.
In 1999, all three candidates for the 2000 presidency of the New Zealand Law Society were women, with Christine Grice succeeding to become the second woman president, beginning her term in April 2000. She had been a president of the Waikato Bay of Plenty District Law Society. At the beginning of 2001, women also hold the position of President in the three largest District Law Societies, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch (Hannah Sargisson, Geraldine Baumann and Isabel Mitchell, respectively.
In 1999 over half of the graduates of the five law schools were women which was a sharp increase from 1970 when they only made up 5.4% of graduates. Women also comprised over half of all admissions to the Bar and half of all law honours and masters students.
While the number of women entering the profession has increased markedly over recent years, the numbers in legal partnerships, the senior ranks of the profession and on the bench have grown only slowly. Subtle barriers to women's progress include issues such as lower pay in the middle ranks, allocation of work of a lesser value, and dealing with family responsibilities. Women have often found that working environments such as the public sector and universities, offer the advantages of transparent appointment processes, equal opportunity policies and more flexible hours which are more accommodating for women with family responsibilities.
Currently six of the 79 Queen's Counsel in practice are women (Judith Ablett-Kerr, Denese Bates, Helen Cull, Ailsa Duffy, Kristy McDonald and Vivienne Ullrich). Twenty-one of the 120 District Court Judges are women, with Carol Shaw sitting in the Employment Court and Shonagh Kenderdine sitting in the Environment Court. Recently Joan Allin was appointed Principal Environment Judge.
In November 2000 Carolyn Wainwright, who had a wide range of legal experience in Maori matters, was the first woman to be appointed to the Maori Land Court Bench in its 35-year history. Two weeks later Caren Wickcliffe, whose legal background included private practice and Senior Lecturer in Law and Director of Graduate Studies at Waikato University, became the first Maori woman judge of the Maori Land Court.
Five of the 38 judges of the High Court are women (Dame Silvia Cartwright, Dame Sian Elias, Lowell Goddard, Judith Potter, and Susan Glazebrook). However, the Court of Appeal consists of seven permanent judges who are all men and, ex officio, the Chief Justice (Dame Sian Elias) who is the only woman.
Although the legal profession has been slow to respond to the winds of change at the end of 2001 women from the profession were holding the positions of Attorney-General (Margaret Wilson), Chief Justice (Dame Sian Elias), and Governor-General (Dame Silvia Cartwright) and President of the New Zealand Law Society (Christine Grice).