Called to the Bar of Algiers in 1908 as the first female lawyer in the North African country, Blanche Azoulay, is believed to be the first female lawyer in the entire African continent, with the more famous, Madeline Wookey, the champion of female right to practice law in South Africa, coming behind her a year later; 1909. Surprisingly, literature on Azoulay’s trail-blazing effort and her exemplary legal life, is scanty, possibly due to language disparity since most of the references about her, were in early publications, made in French.
Interestingly too, the first woman listed in law reports as the first to seek admission as an attorney, wasn’t Azoulay. It wasn’t Wookey too, though the appeal she lost in 1912, is a popular reference point in the development of women participation in the legal profession.
The first woman to appear in the law reports seeking to be admitted as an attorney was Sonya Schlesin (Schlesin v Incorporated Law Society 1909 TS 363) who had been articled to Mr Gandhi.
The Transvaal Supreme Court, in considering her request, held that because the word ‘attorney’ had always referred to men, admitting women as attorneys could also lead to them being admitted as advocates, a change which would mean an enormous difference in the practice of the courts in South Africa.
Ms Schlesin was turned away and had to pay the law society’s costs of the application.
In considering Ms. Wookey’s appeal, Judge Innes who was the Acting Chief Justice spent pages examining Roman, Roman-Dutch, foreign and South African law only to come to the conclusion that where the law referred to ‘persons’ being admitted as attorneys, it referred only to male persons.
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