Clara S. Foltz

Clara Shortridge Foltz, first female lawyer admitted to the California State Bar

Clara Shortridge Foltz (July 16, 1849  – September 2, 1934) was the first female lawyer on the West Coast. She was the sister of U.S. Senator Samuel M. Shortridge. The Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles was renamed after her in 2002, and is now known as the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center.

Early life and legal education

Foltz was born in Lafayette, Indiana, and was a descendant of Daniel Boone. She moved to Mount Pleasant, Iowa, with her parents and attended Howe's Seminary. At age 15, she eloped with a farmer named Jeremiah D. Foltz, and they began having children. However, he had difficulty supporting his family. The Foltzes moved several times, first to Portland, Oregon and finally to San Jose, California in 1872.

After her husband deserted her and their five children, she began studying law in the office of a local judge, and after being denied admission to Hastings College of the Law because of her gender, she sued, argued her own case, and won admission. She passed the bar exam in 1878, but California law at the time allowed only white males to become members of the bar. Foltz authored a state bill which replaced "white male" with "person," and in September 1878, she was the first woman admitted to the California bar. She later also became licensed to practice law in New York.

Advocate for progressive legislation

Not satisfied with becoming a hometown attorney, Foltz became a leader in the woman’s voting rights movement. During a career that spanned 56 years, Clara almost single-handedly pushed a great deal of progressive legislation for women’s rights in the voting and legal fields.

At the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, during a "congress" of the Board of Lady Managers, Foltz introduced her idea of the public defender, with a speech entitled "Rights of Persons Accused of Crime--Abuses Now Existing." Foltz's then-radical concept of providing assistance to indigent criminal defendants is used today throughout the United States. She also created a similar model for the California Parole System.

Her many other trail-blazing accomplishments included becoming the first female clerk for the State Judiciary Committee; the first woman appointed to the State Board of Corrections; the first female licensed Notary Public; the first woman named director of a major bank; and, in 1930, the first woman to run for Governor of California, at the age of eighty-one.

In 1910, she was appointed to the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, becoming the first female deputy district attorney in the United States. She was active in the suffrage movement, authoring the Women's Vote Amendment for California in 1911. Foltz also raised five children, mostly as a single mother, and encouraged women not to overlook their traditional domestic roles.

Foltz also founded and published the San Diego Daily Bee, and New American Woman Magazine, for which she wrote a monthly column until her death.

Looking back on her accomplished life, Foltz wrote: "Everything in retrospect seems weird, phantasmal, and unreal. I peer back across the misty years into that era of prejudice and limitation, when a woman lawyer was a joke ... but the story of my triumphs will eventually disclose that though the battle has been long and hard-fought it was worth while."

References

• Barbara Allen Babcock, Women Defenders in the West, 1 University of Nevada Law Journal 1 (Spring 2001).
• Barbara Allen Babcock, Clara Shortridge Foltz: First Woman, 28 Valparaiso University Law Review 1231 (Summer 1994).
• Barbara Allen Babcock, She Blazed the Trail: Clara Foltz Opened a Major Door for Women in 1878, When She Became the First Female Member of the State Bar, 106 The Los Angeles Daily Journal S16 (October 7, 1993).
• Barbara Allen Babcock, Western Women Lawyers, 45 Stanford Law Review 2179 (1993).
• Barbara Allen Babcock, Clara Shortridge Foltz: Constitution-maker, 66 Indiana Law Journal 849 (1991).
• Barbara Allen Babcock, Reconstructing the Person: The Case of Clara Shortridge Foltz, 12 Biography 1 (1989).
• Clara Foltz, San Francisco, 1 The Law Student's Helper 263 (October 1893).
• Sharon Avey, The Lady Lawyer: Clara Shortridge Foltz, 2001, AV Publishers, ISBN 0-9717396-0-9

External links

Biography portal

• Barbara Babcock biographical projects
• Biography from UC Hastings
• Biography
• Clara S. Foltz at Find a Grave

Persondata
Name	Foltz, Clara S.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	July 16, 1849
Place of birth
Date of death	September 2, 1934
Place of death