Three women lawyers drop the bar

But we should not conclude, says Maria Verone, that women lawyers are tired of the struggle. Their number, in fact, has doubled in three years.

The difficulties of a career

We have often spoken of the victory of feminism, which has enabled young female lawyers not only to frequent the Palace (courthouse), but to make a name for themselves there.

M° Henri-Robert, former President of the Bar, hailed this female conquest in the following terms:

"Mlle Chauvin, Mme Maria Vérone were the first to be called to the Paris bar." The dignity of their existence, their excellent bearing at the helm and — which does not spoil anything — their remarkable talent, immediately commanded attention and respect. The judges listened with marked favor to these intelligent and energetic women who wanted to win their place in a difficult and crowded profession. The colleagues understood that women lawyers could be formidable adversaries at the helm.

Would these opponents be tired of the struggle? Miss Chauvin gives up, along with two of her colleagues. Is the profession so difficult and crowded that these defections should be seen as a failure of the feminine idea in the face of a hard-won liberal career? One of these three lawyers left the palace for higher education; the other, for commerce, the last, for the theatre. What to Conciure?

Those who leave

"Nothing at all," Mrs. Maria Verone kindly told us. We report. these departures, nothing is said of the male departures which were numerous after the war. There are reasons which are the same for both cases: first a high patent, the tax on non-commercial professions, then the difficulty of recruiting servants and organizing an interior where one receives. Lawyers prefer to become civil servants. They have less independence, but also a lot less expense and they are quieter. It is no wonder that they, male or female, make a new choice and abandon one career for another, when the conditions of life have changed. The lawyer who enters the theater is an artist's daughter: she somehow returns to the stage after having experienced the bar. This does not prove that the experience was disappointing,

It is said of women lawyers that they are mostly talked about outside the Palace, but this is the case for those who have illusirated this profession: for Viviani, Poincaré, Millerand. The public is more interested in public action than in trials. Moreover, the biggest cases are those that are never mentioned in the legal chronicle. M° Henri Robert became known for his talent as an assize lawyer, but many have specialized in civil cases where there are only questions of law and on which nothing is published. The profession is such that the more you advance the less you are known to the general public. One of the most successful young lawyers, litigates in rent cases and maritime cases. Myself, I am in business of inheritance and commercial matters which could not have an echo in the press.

Litigant Preferences

It was different when I pleaded in corrections or at the assizes. It is said that even women do not willingly hire a lawyer to defend them. I have never found that the preference was established on a difference of sex and the argument is not to be retained, the lawyers having the files entrusted to them by men.

"There are just over a hundred of us at the Palais, barely half of us in 1920. That's a progression that seems to me to be more important than a few departures, from the point of view of the conclusion that can be drawn from it. »—

ROGER VALBELLA