page_title: Helen Kinnear
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Helen Kinnear / Career
caption_attribution_description: Date: 1920 Photographer: Park Bros Reference code: P1323
context_page_description: Helen Alice Kinnear, QC was a Canadian lawyer. She was the first woman in the British Commonwealth to be made a King's Counsel, the first female lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court of Canada, and the first woman appointed as a judge by the Government of Canada.
context_section_description: Kinnear practiced law in Port Colborne, Ontario, where she initially practised with her father, who renamed the firm Kinnear & Kinnear. When her father died in 1924, she opened her own practise.
  In 1934, she became the first woman in the British Commonwealth to be created a King's Counsel. In 1935, she became the first female lawyer in Canada to appear before the Supreme Court of Canada.
caption: Graduation photo from the Law Society of Upper Canada in 1920
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