Day: March 4, 2016

March is Women’s History Month, dedicated to the many achievements and contributions of women throughout American history, including women in the legal profession. Among the women to have pioneered access to justice in law is Clara Shortridge Foltz, a once-celebrated but now largely forgotten public servant. Foltz was the first woman on the Pacific Coast to pass the bar after first lobbying the California legislature to change a legal code that allowed only white males to become lawyers. Foltz had a successful corporate practice and also represented many indigent defendants in criminal trials where she witnessed rampant prosecutorial misconduct and