Alexander attended University of Pennsylvania and was one of the first three African American women in the United States to earn a Ph.D. She briefly worked for the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, a Black-owned firm, and later became the first African American woman to earn a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. Alexander was admitted to the bar in 1927 and was the first African American to practice law in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. She initially worked for her husband’s law firm handling cases from the Orphan’s Court. Alexander later served as Assistant City Solicitor in Philadelphia (1928-1930; 1934-1938) and eventually formed a legal aid bureau to assist African Americans. See also Biographical files of the Black Women Oral History Project

In 1934, Allen became the first woman lawyer to be appointed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, for the Sixth Circuit. She had previously served as a judge on the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Court of Common Pleas, Cuyahoga County, Ohio.

Established in 1970 in response to petitions by women law students, the AALS Section on Women in Legal Education (SWLE) fought for equal opportunities in legal education and the workplace. Under the leadership of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Shirley R. Bysiewiez, the SWLE addressed issues of financial aid, child care concerns, and part-time employment, collected and disseminated statistical data on women in legal education, and drafted major resolutions and reports on the treatment of women in the legal profession.

Barron was the first president of the Boston University Equal Suffrage League and later became a delegate to the National Committee of Uniform Laws Regarding Marriage and Divorce. She also actively lobbied for women to serve as jurors. Barron was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1914 and opened a private law practice in Boston (1914-1918). Following her marriage to attorney Samuel Barron in 1918, the couple established Barron and Barron, a joint law firm (1914-1937) in Boston. Barron later became the first woman in Massachusetts to prosecute major criminal cases and the first woman judge appointed to serve on Boston’s Municipal Court for life.

A public health official, Democratic Party worker, and lawyer, Blizard was raised in an Irish-Catholic family in Jamaica Plain in Boston. After graduating from Boston Girls High School (1936) she attended Teachers College of the City of Boston (now Boston State) where she earned a B.S.Ed. (1940) and an Ed.M. (1941). Blizard worked in the public health field from 1943-1956. Blizard earned her J.D. from Suffolk University in 1963 and served as legal counsel for the Massachusetts Democratic State Committee (1964-1968) as well as director of the Massachusetts Government Lawyers Association (1973-1977).

Burstein earned her law degree from St. John’s University Law School (1937) and was admitted to the New York bar in 1940. She initially worked for her husband’s law firm but by 1958 had formed her own firm, Burstein & Agata, which specialized in family law. She was the first woman to be appointed to the New York State Commission on Correction (1955-1961) and later founded Services for Prisoners’ Aid in Nassau (SPAN). In 1972, she was elected to the 10th Judicial District of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, where she served until her retirement in 1991.

Sonia Pressman Fuentes was born in 1928 in Berlin, Germany. In 1933, she left Germany with her parents to escape the Nazis and moved to Antwerp, Belgium. In April 1934, they immigrated to the United States and eventually settled in the Catskills in New York State. In 1950, Fuentes graduated from Cornell University with a B.A. in liberal arts. In 1957, she graduated summa cum laude from the University of Miami Law School. From 1965 to 1973, Fuentes became the first woman to work for the Office of General Counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She later became the chief of the Legislative Counsel Division of the General Counsel's Office. Her responsibilities included enforcing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in employment based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Fuentes attended the 1966 organizing conference for the National Organization for Women (NOW) and helped found other feminist organizations.

An attorney and politician, Elizabeth Holtzman earned an A.B. from Radcliffe College (1962) and a J.D. from Harvard Law School (1965). In 1972, Holtzman became the youngest woman ever elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat from New York's 16th District. She served in the House from January 1973 to December 1980 and contributed to the Judiciary Committee. Following an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1980, Holtzman was later elected as New York City's first woman district attorney in 1982 with headquarters in Brooklyn. She was also a founder of the Brooklyn Women's Political Caucus and an organizer of the Take Brooklyn Out of the War Coalition, and she worked with the American Jewish Commission on the Holocaust.

A lawyer, government official, consumer affairs advocate, and Republican Party activist, Howe was one of the youngest women to serve as Assistant Attorney General in the history of Massachusetts. She also served on numerous state and national commissions and councils, including the Massachusetts Consumers’ Council and the President’s Consumer Advisory Council. She has served as a member of the International Women's Year (IWY) Coordinating Committee for Massachusetts and a delegate-at-large to the 1977 IWY Conference in Houston.

A feminist activist, lawyer, and former president of the National Organization for Women, Patricia Ireland was born in Oak Park, Illinois. She received a BA from the University of Tennessee (1966) and initially worked as a flight attendant for Pan Am (1967-1975), where she successfully challenged an inadequate employee health insurance plan. She later earned a JD from the University of Miami Law School (1975). Following graduation, she practiced corporate and commercial law at a Miami law firm and took on legal cases for women's rights while working for the Dade County chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) as pro-bono legal counsel. In 1989, she developed NOW's Project Stand Up for Women, an initiative to defend women's access to abortion, and worked as the national coordinator. She continued this work after her election as president in December 1991.

An attorney, feminist, activist, and civil rights advocate, Kennedy demonstrated a long-standing commitment to many political and social causes including Black liberation, the women’s movement, media awareness, consumer protection, and reproductive rights. She was born in Kansas City, Missouri, where she graduated from Lincoln High School (1932). She began undergraduate work in pre-law at Columbia University in 1944, but was rejected from Columbia Law School. After notifying university officials that she intended to pursue legal action based on racial and gender discrimination, she was admitted in 1948, the same year she earned her B.A. She graduated from Columbia Law in 1951 and a year later passed the New York state bar examination. Kennedy represented the estates of jazz legends Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker and provided legal defense in various high-profile criminal cases including those of Valerie Solanas and Black Panthers H. Rap Brown and Assata Shakur.

Legal Momentum (formerly NOW Legal Defense & Education Fund) was incorporated in 1970 and became one of the first legal organizations in the United States to focus on achieving gender equality through litigation, public policy advocacy, and education. The organization has focused on precedent-setting suits, raised funds to support legal and educational projects, compiled legal guides, and drafted model legislation relating to women’s issues. Its achievements include the Project on Equal Education Rights (PEER), the National Judicial Education Project (NJEP), and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

A lawyer and feminist, Leonard was born in Agawam, Massachusetts. She earned a B.A. in history from Brown University (1929) and worked as the secretary of a law firm for several years before enrolling in law school in 1945. She pursued her J.D. in the evenings at Boston University, graduating in 1949. Leonard was one of five women to successfully pass the Massachusetts bar exam in 1953. For many years she worked for the John Hancock Company as an attorney and title examiner. Over the course of her career, she was an active member of the American Bar Association, a member of the federal and U.S. Supreme Court bars, and a staunch Republican. Of special interest is Leonard’s working relationship with Alice Paul, founder of the National Woman's Party, which involved researching and writing the legal history of women's rights and cases of discrimination at the state level.

A feminist, lawyer, and writer, MacKinnon was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She graduated from Smith College (B.A. 1969), Yale Law School (J.D. 1977), and Yale University (Ph.D. 1987). She organized the first women’s studies program at Yale University. MacKinnon’s first book, Sexual Harassment of Working Women (1978), framed her argument that sexual harassment in the workplace was a violation of federal law because it represented sexual discrimination. This framework was adopted by the United States Supreme Court in 1986 while trying its first sexual harassment case. MacKinnon has taught at Yale, University of Chicago, Harvard, and Stanford and has served as a legal representative for a diverse range of women’s issues, including Bosnian women who survived Serbian genocide (Kadic v. Karadzic).

A lawyer, educator, political activist, and writer, Pauli Murray was the first woman to become an ordained Episcopal minister. She was born in Baltimore, Md., and grew up in North Carolina, where she was raised by her maternal aunt. Murray attended Hunter College in New York City and graduated in 1933. She held a variety of jobs that included positions in the Works Progress Administration and the Workers' Defense League. She attended Howard University Law School (1941-1944) and completed graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. During the 1940s she operated a law office in New York City and was later hired as an associate attorney for the law offices of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison (1956). During the 1960s Murray was a university professor and served on the President's Commission on the Status of Women.

The National Association of Women Judges is a non-partisan, 501(c)(3) charitable and educational organization founded in 1979 in Los Angeles, California. Its founding members included Joan Dempsey Klein and Vaino Spencer, justices of the Second Appellate Division of the California Court of Appeal; Sybil Hart Kooper, justice of the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court; and Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman justice to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. Its primary objectives include promoting gender equality, ensuring judicial competence through educational programs, and increasing the number of women in the state and federal judiciary. The Association has also played a highly influential role in initiating and supporting public policies that impact women’s lives.

The National Association of Women Lawyers is a voluntary legal organization that promotes the interests of women lawyers and advocates for women’s rights. Initially known as the Women Lawyers Club, the organization was founded in 1899 in response to widespread exclusion of women from the legal profession. Highly influential, the organization is responsible for authoring legislation focused on social reform and achieving equality for women under the law. Other legal achievements include obtaining the right of women to serve as jurors, receive equal pay for equal work, and receive property, benefits, and protection under the Uniform Divorce Bill.

A lawyer and jurist, Sampson was an active member of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). Based on the recommendation of Mary McLeod Bethune, she participated in the Town Hall of the Air, a radio program and lecture series that promoted solidarity and peace during the post-World War II era. She later became the first African American woman to serve as an alternative delegate at the United Nations.

A feminist lawyer and educator, Lynn Hecht Schafran studied art history at Smith College (B.A. 1962) and Columbia University (M.A. 1965) and later attended law school at Columbia (J.D. 1974), where she worked as a research assistant to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. From 1979 to 1981, Schafran was national director of the Federation of Women Lawyers Judicial Screening Panel. She has been director of Legal Momentum's National Judicial Education Program to Promote Equality for Women and Men in the Courts (NJEP) since 1981, and is also Senior Vice President of Legal Momentum. She was appointed to the Defense Department's Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (1993-1996). She is the author of several model judicial education curricula, as well as numerous articles on gender bias in the courts and the legal profession. She has received numerous awards for her work to eliminate gender bias in the courts and the profession, including the Smith College Medal (1992). Schafran was the first woman to be awarded the American Law Institute-American Bar Association Francis Rawle Award for outstanding achievement in post-admission legal education.

A lawyer and an expert in women’s health law, Sybil Shainwald graduated with a BA from the College of William and Mary (1948), an MA from Columbia University (1972), and a JD from New York Law School (1976). She was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1978 and has litigated thousands of cases involving drugs and medical devices that have injured women and their offspring, including the Dalkon Shield and other intrauterine devices (IUDs), silicone breast implants, and Norplant. Shainwald has held many positions within the National Women's Health Network, including board member (1980-1986), president (1982-1986), chair of health law and regulations (1981-1988), and chair of the litigation service (1980-1986). She has also been involved with a number of women's health advocacy groups, including the National Women's Health Network and the Hysterectomy Educational Resources and Services (HERS) Foundation.

Attorney and judge Caroline (Klein) Simon was born in New York City. She received her law degree from the New York University School of Law (1925) and passed the bar exam the following year. Simon was active in the Citizen's Committee for Planned Parenthood and edited the Birth Control Review in 1939 and 1940. She served as a commissioner on the New York State Workmen's Compensation Board and as Commissioner of the New York State Commission Against Discrimination and of the State Youth Commission. Between 1959 and 1963, during Governor Nelson Rockefeller's administration, Simon became the second woman to serve as Secretary of State of New York. From 1963 to 1971, she sat as a judge on the New York State Court of Claims. She was actively involved in many organizations, including the American Jewish Committee, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, the National Council of Women of the United States, the United Nations, and Freedom House.

Founded in 1978 in response to the needs and concerns of the unprecedented numbers of women entering the legal profession, the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts (WBA) is committed to the advancement of women in the profession and to the interests of women in society. It offers educational programs, mentoring, and networking opportunities, supports pro bono activities and candidates for all levels of appointments, writes amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs, and lobbies the legislature. Through its Legislative Policy Committee, the Women's Bar Association has taken an active role in advocating for issues of concern to women, including domestic violence, reproductive rights, child custody, legal services, family medical leave, same-sex marriage, health care, and probate. In addition, the Women's Bar Association files amicus curiae briefs in cases affecting women and their children, including cases concerning alimony, child support, domestic violence, employment, sexual harassment, gender equality, reproductive rights, and reproductive technology.

The Women's State-Wide Legislative Network of Massachusetts (WSLNM) was one of the largest network of individuals and organizations in Massachusetts representing women on public policy issues. Founded in 1983 to teach women how to effectively participate in the legislative process and influence the outcome of public policies affecting their lives, the organization built coalitions with allied organizations and was responsible for the formation of the Women's Statewide Legislative Alliance, a non-partisan grassroots sister organization that focused on lobbying. Both organizations led and participated in legislative campaigns involving child care, housing, paid family and medical leave, welfare reform, education, and health care. WSLNM also published Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women, Income, and Poverty (1994), the first comprehensive study on women, income, and poverty in Massachusetts; served in an advisory role for various organizations; and organized workshops and educational forums across Massachusetts, for which it received widespread national recognition.