The Invisible Bar: The Woman Lawyer in America, 1638 to the Present

by Karen Berger Morello

Traces the history of women lawyers in the United States, describes the discrimination they have had to overcome in the profession, and includes profiles of top women lawyers and judges

Genres: Womens, Nonfiction

286 pages, Paperback

First published September 12, 1986

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Invisible Bar (Hardcover)
by Karen Berger Morello

ILL


Contents: Introduction -- The first women lawyers -- The first women law students -- Women in urban law schools -- Last bastions: the Ivy League law schools -- Rebels and reformers -- Double impairment: Black women lawyers -- Women in the courtroom -- Women in major law firms -- Women on the bench -- The invisible bar.

[Roberta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book to get more background information for an essay I am writing on an early woman lawyer in upstate NY. Information that I was finding on the web was turning out to be unreliable. For one thing, law school web sites under "History" were painting themselves to be progressive during the early 20th century, when, in fact, they were absolutely not.

I can't personally vouch for the accuracy of the whole book but the sections on New York appear to be more meticulously accurate than Sisters In Law: Women Lawyers In Modern American History and less biased than other sources I found on the Internet.

There are good "Notes" at the end of the book useful for people who might be interested in further information on one of the women or schools mentioned in the book.

I took off one star because this book has no index. That is a nearly unforgivable flaw in a nonfiction book like this one. [Note: many publishing companies, my experience was with Little,Brown, require their authors to supply the index to the book, either do it themselves or, more usually, hire someone to do it at the author's expense. This book was published by Random House, a major publisher. I'm surprised that an index seemed so trivial to them that they didn't cut a deal with the author to maybe split the difference.]

The book is organized thusly:
Chapter 1: The first Women Lawyers
Chapter 2: The First Women Law Students
Chapter 3: Women in the Urban Law Schools
Chapter 4: Last Bastions: The Ivy League Law Schools
Chapter 5: Rebels and Reformers
Chapter 6: Double Impairment: Black Women Lawyers
Chapter 7: Women in the Courtroom
Chapter 8: Women in Major Law Firms
Chapter 9: Women on the Bench
Chapter 10: The Invisible Bar