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The Jewish women who were among the first to seize the opportunity to be lawyers

It has been a century since women first became able to practise law in Britain

January 3, 2020 12:28
Judge Myrella Cohen QC
5 min read

December marked 100 years since women were able, for the first time, to become lawyers in the UK.

Jewish women were among the first to seize the opportunity to practise and their contribution has been extraordinary.

The first woman ever to represent a client in court in the British Empire was Ethel Rebecca Benjamin who, in 1897, sought the recovery of a debt in her native New Zealand.

The daughter of Orthodox Jews who had emigrated from England in the late 1860s, she was admitted as a barrister and solicitor on May 10, 1897, in New Zealand.