The Birth of Legal Aid: Gender Ideologies, Women, and the Bar in New York City, 1863–1910

Abstract

At the New York Legal Aid Society's twenty-fifth anniversary banquet in 1901, Arthur von Briesen, the Society's longtime president, ended the evening with the following acknowledgement: “Before we separate I beg to be permitted to say a few words on … the valuable aid which the Society has received from the women of New York. I want you to understand that without them we could not have prospered, without their assistance we could not have done the work… . Their energetic efforts in our behalf, their clear understanding of the duties … has enabled us to increase not only the forte and our power for good, but enabled us to create a special branch in which the cases of women can be specially considered by an able lawyer who is also a woman.” Here Briesen publicly recognized women's efforts on behalf of legal aid as benefactors, supporters, volunteers, and lawyers. The audience that evening would not have been surprised to learn that a woman lawyer now would be providing legal services to women clients, for this was not a new phenomenon. The Society already employed a number of women lawyers. Furthermore women formally untrained in law, but nonetheless acting as lawyers, had prior to the turn of the century provided legal services to poor women through New York City's Working Women's Protective Union (WWPU). As I demonstrate, the origins of legal aid lay in the provision of legal services to poor women—often by other women.