page_title: Ada Evans
section_title: Legal career
hierarchical_section_title: Ada Evans / Legal career
caption_attribution_description: English: Ada Emily Evans, BA, LLB (Syd) (1872-1947), the first woman to graduate in law from an Australian university and to be admitted to the Bar in NSW
context_page_description: Ada Emily Evans, was an Australian lawyer and the first female law graduate in Australia.
context_section_description: Later, encouraged by her mother Louisa, Evans enrolled again at the University of Sydney in 1899, this time in the Sydney Law School. Although the Dean of the school at the time, Pitt Cobbett, would by all accounts never have permitted a woman to enrol, he was absent overseas and Evans was able to enter the school. On his return, he declared to Evans "that she did not have the physique for law and would find medicine more suitable".
  The rules of practice in force in New South Wales at the time did not comprehend female lawyers, and there was no precedent of women becoming lawyers; when Evans attempted to register as a student-at-law with the Supreme Court of New South Wales, her application was rejected. Although the rules of practice legislation did not actually disqualify women from becoming lawyers, the common law at the time held that unless legislation specifically conferred rights or privileges on women, it did not apply to them, for women were not included in the definition of persons. Despite these setbacks, Evans persisted with her studies, and on 26 December 1902 graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree, the first woman in Australia to do so.
caption: Ada Evans, admitted to the Bar in NSW, May 1921
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