List of first women lawyers and judges in North Carolina

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This is a list of the first women lawyer(s) and judge(s) in North Carolina. It includes the year in which the women were admitted to practice law (in parentheses). Also included are women who achieved other distinctions such as becoming the first in their state to obtain a law degree or become a political figure.

Firsts in state history[]

Elizabeth Dole: First female to serve as a U.S. Senator for North Carolina (2003)

Lawyers[]

Law Clerk[]

Judicial Officers[]

State[]

Judges[]
  • Mamie Dowd Walker:[9][10] First female (non-attorney) judge in North Carolina (1934)
  • Elreta Melton Alexander-Ralston (1947):[11] First African American female judge in North Carolina
  • Georgia J. Lewis:[12][13] First Hispanic American (female) judicial officer in North Carolina[14]
  • Tanya T. Wallace (1987-2019):[15] First female judge to swear her daughter into judicial office (2018). Her daughter is Judge Chevonne Wallace. In 2010, Judge Wallace served on a three judge panel in the Greg Taylor Innocence Commission Case. It became the first case in the United States in which a defendant was declared "actually innocent." Judge Wallace was the only female on the panel.
  • Sam Hamadani:[16][17] First Iranian American female (and Iranian American in general) judge in North Carolina (2018)
  • Angelica Chavis McIntyre and Brooke Locklear Clark:[18] First Native American female judges respectively in North Carolina (2018)
Superior Court[]
  • Susie Sharp (1928):[19][20] First female appointed as a Judge of the Superior Court (1949), Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court (1962) and Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court (1975)
District Court[]
  • Kimberly S. Taylor (1977):[21] First female appointed as a Judge of the Twenty-Second Judicial District in North Carolina (1986)
  • Ola M. Lewis:[22][23] First female (and African American) serve as a Judge of the Thirteenth Judicial District in North Carolina (1993)
  • Rebecca Eggers-Gryder:[24] First female to serve as a Judge of the Twenty-Fourth Judicial District in North Carolina
Supreme Court[]
  • Susie Sharp (1928):[19][20] First female appointed as a Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court (1962) and Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court (1975)
  • Patricia Timmons-Goodson:[25] First African American (female) to serve as a Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court (2006)
  • Cheri Beasley:[26] First African American female to serve as the Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court (2019)

Federal[]

District Court[]

District Attorneys[]

  • Jean E. Powell:[29][30] First female to serve as a District Attorney in North Carolina (1989)
  • Belinda J. Foster:[31][32] First African American female to serve as a District Attorney in North Carolina (1993)

Assistant District Attorney[]

  • Wanda G. Bryant:[33] First African American female to serve as an Assistant District Attorney for the Thirteenth Prosecutorial District in North Carolina

Public Defender[]

  • Mary Ann Tally:[34] First female to serve as a Public Defender in North Carolina (1974)

Political Office[]

Bar Associations[]

Firsts in local history[]

Alphabetized by county name

Region[]

  • Margaret Fonvielle Heyward (1943):[39] First female lawyer admitted to the Bar Association in Southeastern North Carolina

Alleghany County[]

Ashe County[]

Avery County[]

Bladen County[]

Brunswick County[]

Buncombe County[]

Cabarrus County[]

Caswell County[]

Cherokee County[]

Clay County[]

Cumberland County[]

Durham County[]

Graham County[]

Guilford County[]

  • Avery Crump:[48] First female (and African American female) to serve as the District Attorney for Guilford County, North Carolina (2019)
  • Teresa Vincent:[49] First African American (female) to serve as the Chief Judge of the Guilford County District Court, North Carolina (2019)

Haywood County[]

Henderson County[]

Hoke County[]

Jackson County[]

Macon County[]

Madison County[]

Mecklenburg County[]

  • Julia Alexander:[51] First female lawyer in Charlotte, North Carolina [Mecklenburg County, North Carolina]
  • Kathy Thompson:[52] First female to serve as the President of the Mecklenburg County Bar Association, North Carolina
  • Nell Lott:[52] First African American female (and African American in general) to serve as the President of the Mecklenburg County Bar Association, North Carolina

Mitchell County[]

Pitts County[]

Rockingham County[]

Rowan County[]

Scotland County[]

Swain County[]

Wake County[]

Watauga County[]

  • Rebecca Eggers-Gryder:[24] First female to serve as a Judge of the Twenty-Fourth Judicial District in North Carolina [Avery, Madison, Mitchell, Watauga and Yancey Counties, North Carolina]
  • Linda M. McGee:[58] First female president of the Wautauga County Bar Association. She later became Chief Judge of the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

Wilkes County[]

Yadkin County[]

Yancey County[]

See also[]

Other topics of interest[]

References[]

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