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List of first women lawyers and judges in South America

List of women who were first to achieve certain legal milestones in South America From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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This is a list of the first women lawyer(s) and judge(s) in South America. It includes the year in which the women were admitted to practice law (in parentheses). Also included are the first women in their country to achieve a certain distinction such as obtaining a law degree.

KEY

Argentina

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Margarita Argúas: First female Minister of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (1970)

Lawyers

General Defender and Attorney General

  • Stella Maris Martínez:[14][15] First female to serve as the General Defender of the Nation of Argentina (2006)
  • Alejandra Gils Carbó:[14][16] First female to serve as the Attorney General of Argentina (2012)

Judicial officers

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Bolivia

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Esilda Villa: First female lawyer in Bolivia (1929)
  • Esilda Villa (1929):[27] First female lawyer in Bolivia
  • Nelly Sfeir Gonzalez:[28] First president of reconstituted Union Femenina Universitaria (Union of Women University Students). A licensed lawyer in Bolivia, she was also a law student activist and protest organizer that demanded the vote for women (1952).
  • Graciela Lara de Penaranda:[29] First female lawyer to receive a doctorate in Altos Estudios Militares (DAEM) [HIgher Military Studies] (1966)
  • María Josefa Saavedra:[30][31][32] First female appointed as a Minister (Judge) of the Supreme Court of Justice of Bolivia (1972)
  • Elizabeth Iñiguez de Salinas and Silvia Salame Farjat:[33][34] First females to serve as titular magistrates of the Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal (1999; formerly the Constitutional Court of Bolivia when established in 1998). Iñiguez de Salinas later became the first female President of the same court.
  • Maria Antonieta Pizza Bilbao:[35] First female to serve as the President of the National Bar Association of Bolivia (2000)
  • Elena Lowenthal:[36] First female appointed as the Vocal (District Judges) for the Superior Court of Bolivia (2002)
  • Amalia Morales:[37] First Aymara female to become a judge in Bolivia (2010)
  • Cristina Mamani:[38][39] First indigenous (Aymara) female elected as a judge in Bolivia (2011)
  • Abigail Salas:[40][41] First female candidate for the Attorney General of Bolivia (2012). Salas was unsuccessful, as she was disqualified from the race.
  • María Cristina Diaz Sosa:[42] First female to serve as President of the Supreme Court of Justice of Bolivia (2019)
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Brazil

Law Degree

  • Maria Coelho da Silva Sobrinha, Maria Fragoso e Delmira Secundina da Costa and Maria Augusta C. Meira Vasconcelos:[43][44] First females to obtain law degrees in Brazil (1888-1898)

Lawyers

Attorney General and Prosecutor General

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Ellen Gracie Northfleet was Brazil's first woman appointed to the Supreme Court (2000) and the first female Chief Justice (2006)

Judicial officers

  • Ellen Gracie Northfleet:[62] first woman to be appointed justice of the Supreme Court of Brazil (2000)[63] and Brazil's first female Chief Justice (2006)[64]
  • Auri Moura Costa:[65][66][67] First female municipal judge in Brazil (1939). She was also the first female to serve as a Judge of Law (1968).
  • Thereza Grisólia Tang and Ana Maria da Silveira:[68][69][70][71][72][73] First female judges in Brazil (1954)
  • Sônia Taciana Sanches Goulart:[74] First female to serve as a Labor judge in Brazil (1960)
  • Mary de Aguiar Silva:[75][76] First female Black judge appointed in Brazil (1962)
  • Maria Rita Soares de Andrade:[77][78] First female appointed as a federal judge in Brazil (1967). She was also the first female lawyer in the states of Bahia and Sergipe.
  • Maria Thereza de Andrade Braga Haynes:[79] First female to serve as a Judge of the Justice of the Federal District and Territories (1974) and its President (1988)
  • Lydia Dias Fernandes:[80][81] First female judge to serve as a President of a Court of Justice in Brazil (Court of Justice of Pará; 1979–1981)
  • Ana Maria Goffi Flaquer Scartezzini, Anna Maria Pimentel, Lúcia Valle Figueiredo Collarile and Diva Prestes Marcondes Malerbi:[52] First females to serve as Judges of the then newly created Federal Regional Court of the Third Region of Brazil (1989). Pimentel was the first female to serve as the court's President (2003).[82]
  • Cnea Cimini Moreira de Oliveira:[83] First female to serve as a Minister of the Supreme Labor Court of Brazil (1990-1999)
  • Eliana Calmon:[84][85] First female to serve as a Minister of the Superior Court of Justice of Brazil (1999-2013)
  • Sylvia Steiner:[86] First Brazilian (female) to serve as a Judge of the International Criminal Court (2003)
  • Maria Elizabeth Guimarães Teixeira Rocha:[87] First female to serve as a Minister of the Superior Military Court of Brazil (2007) and well as its President (2014)
  • Nancy Andrighi:[88] First female elected as the General Corrector (Electoral General Attorney) of the Superior Electoral Court of Brazil (2011)
  • Carmen Lúcia Antunes Rocha:[89][90] First female Minister to serve as President of the Superior Electoral Court of Brazil (2012)
  • Carla Santillo:[91] First female to serve as the President of the State Audit Court of Brazil (2015)
  • Laurita Hilário Vaz:[92] First female to serve as the President of the Superior Court of Justice of Brazil (2016)
  • Martha Halfeld Furtado de Mendonca Schmidt:[93] First Brazilian (female) to serve as a Judge of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal (2016)
  • Cristina Peduzzi:[94] First female Minister to serve as the President of the Superior Labor Court of Brazil (2020)
  • Edilene Lôbo:[95] First Black female to serve as a Minister of the Superior Electoral Court of Brazil (2023)
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Chile

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Colombia

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Ecuador

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Falkland Islands (GBR)

See Women in law in the United Kingdom

French Guiana (FRA)

  • Hélène Sirder (1978):[154] First female Guyanese lawyer in French Guiana. She became the first female Bâtonnière of the Guyane Bar Association in 1992.[155]
  • Constance Rézaire-Loupec (c. 1970):[156] First female magistrate in French Guiana (1978)
  • Marie-Laure Rainsart Piazza and Béatrice Bugeon–Almendros:[157][158] First females to serve as the President of French Guiana's Court of Appeal of Cayenne (successively beginning in 2017)
  • Elisabeth Rolin:[159] First (female) Vice-President of French Guiana’s Administrative Court of Cayenne (2024)
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Guyana

  • Iris de Freitas Brazao (1929):[160][161] First female lawyer in the Anglophone Caribbean, as well as the first female prosecutor of a murder trial in the same region. Brazao practiced law in Guyana when it was known as British Guiana.
  • Ena Luckhoo:[162] First Indian female lawyer in Guyana
  • Norma Jackson:[163] First female magistrate when Guyana was known as British Guiana (c. 1958)
  • Désirée Bernard (1964):[164][165][166] First female judge in Guyana (upon her appointment as a Judge of the High Court of Guyana in 1980). She is also the first female appointed as a Justice of Appeal in the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Guyana (1992), Chief Justice (1996), Chancellor of the Judiciary of Guyana and the Caribbean (2001) and Judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice (2005).
  • Claudette La Bennett:[167][168] First female to serve as a Chief Magistrate in Guyana (1990)
  • Pearlene Roach:[169][170] First female to serve as President of the Guyana Bar Association (c. 1995)
  • Claudette Singh (1973), Rosalie Robertson (1983), and Roxane George-Wiltshire (1990):[171][172] First females appointed as Senior Counsels in Guyana (2017). Singh was the first female Deputy Solicitor General of Guyana whereas George-Wiltshire was the first female to serve as Guyana's Director of Public Prosecutions.[173]
  • Shalimar Ali-Hack:[174] First Muslim female appointed as a Senior Counsel in Guyana (2019). She is also Guyana's first Muslim female attorney (1990), as well as the first Muslim female to serve as the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Paraguay

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Peru

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Trinidad María Enríquez: First female to earn a law degree in Peru (1907)
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South Georgia and Sandwich Islands (GBR)

See Women in law in the United Kingdom

Suriname

Uruguay

Venezuela

See also

References

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