List of first women lawyers and judges in Alabama

This is a list of the first women lawyer(s) and judge(s) in Alabama. It includes the year in which the women were admitted to practice law (in parentheses). Also included are women who achieved other distinctions such becoming the first in their state to graduate from law school or become a political figure.

Firsts in Alabama's history

Law School

First female law graduates: Floella T. Bonner and Virginia Henry Mayfield in 1920

Lawyers

First female: Maud McLure Kelly (1908) First African American female: Mahala Ashley Dickerson (1948)

State judges

First female: Virginia Henry Mayfield in 1923

First African American female: Faya Ora Rose Touré

First female (Alabama Court of Appeals): Annie Lola Price (1928) in 1951

First female (Supreme Court of Alabama): Janie Shores (1959) in 1974

First elected female (trial judge): Phyllis S. Nesbit in 1976

First female (probate judge): Earlean Isaac in 1989

First female (district court judge): Sharon Lovelace Blackburn in 1991

First female (Southern District of Alabama): Callie "Ginny" V. Granade (1975) in 2002 First female chief justice (Supreme Court of Alabama): Sue Bell Cobb (1981) in 2006 First (African American) female (elected state judge): Deborah Biggers (1975) in 2014 First female (presiding judge): Elisabeth French in 2020

Attorney General of Alabama

First female (acting): Alice Martin (1981) in 2017

United States Attorney

First female (Northern District of Alabama): Alice Martin (1981) in 2001

Assistant United States Attorney

First female (Southern District of Alabama): Callie "Ginny" V. Granade (1975) from 1977-2011

District Attorneys

First female: Janice Clardy in 1985

First African American female: Lynneice Washington (1996) in 2017

Assistant District Attorney

First female: Judith "Judy" Crittenden (1970)

Political Office

First females elected to U.S. House of Representatives from Alabama: Terri Sewell (1994) and Martha Roby (c. 2001) in 2010 First female elected to U.S. Senate from Alabama: Katie Britt in 2022

Alabama State Bar Association

First African American female (admitted to state bar): Estelle Henderson (1919) First female president: Alyce Manley in 2010

Firsts in local history

Martha Lynn Sherrod: First African American female judge to win a partisan election in North Alabama

Inge Prytz Johnson (1973): First female to serve on the 31st Judicial Circuit Court of Alabama (1978) Shannon Clark: First female serve as a Judge of the Twelfth District in Alabama (2011) Kimberly Clark (1996): First female serve as a Judge of the Thirty-Third Judicial Circuit in Alabama (2015)

Janice Clardy: First female to serve as a District Attorney in the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit of Alabama (1985) [Autauga, Chilton and Elmore Counties, Alabama]