Historian Barbara Babcock will speak about her new book, Woman Lawyer: The Trials of Clara Foltz. Clara Shortridge Foltz (1849–1934), a UC Hastings alumna, played an important role in the school's history and was the first woman admitted to practice law in California. Prof. Joseph Grodin will offer introductory remarks. 

"Barbara Babcock conjures and brings to life a nearly-forgotten feminist hero. This account of Clara Foltz's rise from an under-educated farmer's wife to an icon of the California women's movement and a national public intellectual is both riveting and strangely familiar. That a single mother of five could have exploded into the hurly-burly world of California in the 1870s and-through mastery of the media, manipulation of her public image, and dogged hard work-become a national force for early progressive jurisprudence is astonishing. That women in 2011 could have no collective memory of Foltz is tragic. Babcock brings Foltz back to us with great tenderness and subtlety, reclaiming a place in American legal history for a working mother and national thinker who has much to teach us still." -- Dahlia Lithwick, Senior Editor, Slate

The event is sponsored by the Hastings Women's Law Journal, and all are invited to attend. Light refreshments will be served.