22 years after Clara Brett Martin broke the gender barrier for all women in the British common law world, a mere 11 Ontario women had followed in her footsteps. A jurist who years earlier had sought a re-take of the vote admitting women to the Law Society of Ontario, wrote: “The admission of women is regarded with complete indifference by all but those immediately concerned”.
Within a year, across the threshold of the LSUC’s Osgoode Hall, Ontario’s sole law school, more than 20 young women were studying law. Laura Denton Duff and Helen Currie, who would become the 20th and 32nd woman lawyers called to the Bar in Ontario in 1920-21 gathered together a handful of young women lawyers and law students in the offices of Frank Denton, K.C., Laura’s father. They planned an annual meeting to welcome new women students-at-law. Every woman ever admitted to membership in the LSUC, at most 35 lawyers and law students, was invited to this, the inaugural meeting of the Women’s Law Association of Ontario (“WLAO”).
Clara Brett Martin was the keynote speaker. Valued principles forged by the early members set foundations that proved to be enduring. “To encourage the interchange of ideas and co-operation between women with legal training”, described the WLAO purpose. Until educational seminars became commonplace in the 1970’s, monthly meetings provided the sole source of continuing legal education for many women lawyers. WLAO continues today as one of the oldest surviving independent legal associations in Ontario and the first Canadian women’s legal association.