Chronology: Women and the Legal Profession in Saskatchewan

March 9, 2015

By Alan Kilpatrick

In honour of International Women’s Day we have reproduced a chronology of women and the legal profession in Saskatchewan.  This chronology was compiled for a 1988 survey of female graduates from the University of Saskatchewan’s College Of Law.

 

 

 

 

 

1913 –   M. Burgess became the first women to register as a student at law in Saskatchewan; she did so on the very first day that The Legal Profession Act was amended to allow women to practice law.

1917 –   Mary Cathcart became the first women to be admitted to the Bar in Saskatchewan.

1917 –   Jean Ethel MacLachlan became the first female Justice of the Peace in Canada as well as Saskatchewan.

1920 –   Elsie Hall became the first woman to earn her LLB from the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan.

1948 –   Dorothy Greensmith became the first woman to be named King’s Counsel western Canada.

1960 –   Tillie Taylor became the first female provincial magistrate in Saskatchewan.

1964 –   Mary Batten became the first women to be appointed a District Court Judge in Saskatchewan.

1974 –   Bonita Rourke became the first female law professor on tenure track at the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan.

1983 –   Mary Batten became the first female Chief Justice to a Court of Queen’s Bench in Saskatchewan.

1984 –   Majorie Gerwing became the first woman to be appointed Justice of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal.

 

Sources

Savarese, J, & Keet, M, & Sutherland, K. Survey of Women Graduates from the College of Law. (University of Saskatchewan College of Law, 1988).