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Note that this entry is a product of its time, and should be read in that context. Footnotes have been omitted to make the text easier to follow. Also note that scanning and editing may have introduced a few errors into the transcription. Because of these errors, if you need to use this information in an academic paper, please consult the original, available at many libraries.

This continues the entry under "Women" in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica - this entry is from a footnote..

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Women have long practised law in the United States, and in 1896 the benchers of the Ontario Law Society decided to admit them to the bar. In France in December 1900 an act was passed enabling women to practise as barristers, and Madame Petit was sworn in Paris, while a woman was briefed for the defence in a murder case in Toulouse in 1903, this being the first case of a woman pleading in a European criminal court. In Finland and Norway women have long practised as barristers, and in Denmark since 1908 they have been admitted as assistants to lawyers. By the law of the Nether~ lands they are admitted as notaries. In England a special tribunal of the House of Lords presided over by the Lord Chancellor decided in 1903 not to admit women to the English bar, on the grounds that there was no precedent and that they were not desirous of creating one; but numbers of women take degrees in law in British universities, and several have become solicitors.

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More of this article: General | Mosaic Law, Ancient India | Roman Law | Christian Law  | Northern Europe Law | English Law | Husband and Wife | Criminal Law | Education | Professions | Nursing and Medicine | Government and Politics | Women Practicing Law | Women as Clergy | Women's Rights Agitation | Woman Suffrage | Woman Suffrage 1865-1906 | Woman Suffrage 1906-1910 | Woman Suffrage Societies | Woman Suffrage New Zealand and Australia | Woman Suffrage America | Woman Suffrage Europe | Woman Suffrage International | Sources

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Part of a collection of etexts on women's history produced by Jone Johnson Lewis. Editing and formatting © 1999-2003 Jone Johnson Lewis.