page_title: Ethel Benjamin
section_title: Legal career
hierarchical_section_title: Ethel Benjamin / Legal career
caption_attribution_description: English: Ethel Benjamin (centre front) first female lawyer in New Zealand, at the opening of the Dunedin Law Courts in 1902.
context_page_description: Ethel Rebecca Benjamin was New Zealand's first female lawyer. On 17 September 1897, she became the first woman in the British Empire to appear as counsel in court, representing a client for the recovery of a debt. She was the second woman in the Empire to be admitted as a barrister and solicitor, two months after Clara Brett Martin of Canada.
context_section_description: In 1892 Benjamin won a university scholarship, and in 1893 she enrolled at the University of Otago for an LLB degree, not knowing if she would be able to practice law on completion:
  It is true that the Legal Profession was not then open to women, and that the franchise had not yet been granted, but I had faith that a colony so liberal as our own would not long tolerate such purely artificial barriers. I therefore entered on my studies with a light heart, feeling sure that I should not long be debarred from the use of any degree I might obtain.
  Benjamin graduated in July 1897, having achieved outstanding marks in her course. The Female Law Practitioners Act was passed in 1896 and on 10 May 1897 she was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of New Zealand.
  Upon her graduation, Benjamin was asked to speak on behalf of all the graduates. She is reported to have said:
  It was only yesterday that I was asked to undertake this pleasant task, and while deeply sensible to the compliment paid to me, I was somewhat diffident about taking so much upon myself at so short a notice. But I knew that little would be expected of me and even if I succeeded in talking nonsense, the charitable verdict would be, 'Oh well, it is all that can be expected of a woman.'
  Despite receiving adverse treatment from the Otago District Law Society at the time, such as restricted access to the society's library, she opened and ran a successful legal practice in Princes Street, primarily as a solicitor. Her cases included wife abuse, divorce, and adoption. Developing her private practice wasn't easy. The Law Society made things difficult for her by not inviting her to official functions such as their annual dinner, and tried to enforce a dress code on her. Her main sources of clients were the Jewish community and women with financial interests. She also represented several hotels and publicans' associations on matters related to prohibition - she was one of the few nineteenth-century New Zealand feminists who didn't support temperance.
  Ethel Benjamin was a founding member of the Dunedin branch of the New Zealand Society for the Protection of Women and Children (founded in 1899) and was its honorary solicitor.
caption: Ethel Benjamin (centre front) at the opening of Dunedin Law Courts in 1902
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