List of first women lawyers and judges in Missouri

This is a list of the first women lawyer(s) and judge(s) in Missouri. 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 Missouri's history

Law School

First female law graduate: Phoebe Couzins in 1871

Lawyers

First female: Lemma Barkeloo (1870) First female (practice law in the first congressional district of Maryland): Lois Buhl (1904) First African American female: Dorothy L. Freeman (1942) First (African American) female (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights): Frankie Muse Freeman (1937) in 1964 First African American female to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States: Leona P. Thurman (1949)

State judges

First female (non-attorney judge): Frances Hopkins in 1915

First female elected: Margaret Young (1931) in 1954

First female appointed: Marybelle Mueller (1950) in 1955

First female (under the Missouri Nonpartisan Court Plan): Anna Forder (1974) in 1979 First female elected (circuit court): Ellen Roper (1973) in 1982 First African American female: Evelyn Marie Baker in 1983 First female (Supreme Court of Missouri): Ann K. Covington (1977) in 1988 First Hispanic American female (circuit court): Justine Del Muro in 1993 First female (Supreme Court of Missouri; Chief Justice): Ann K. Covington (1977) from 1993-1995 First African American female (Missouri Court of Appeals): Lisa White Hardwick (1985) in 2001 First Asian American (female): Judy Preddy Draper in 2004 First African American female (Chief Judge; Missouri Court of Appeals): Nannette Baker in 2008 First African-American female (Presiding Judge; Twenty-Second Judicial Circuit): Robin Ransom in 2018 First African-American female (Supreme Court of Missouri): Robin Ransom in 2021

Federal judges

First African American female (U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri; Chief Justice): Carol E. Jackson (1976) in 1992 and 2002 respectively

Assistant Attorney General

First female: Margaret Young (1931)