Carrie Morrison

Carol Morrison (3 February 1888 – 20 February 1950) was the first woman to be admitted as a solicitor in England.

Biography Morrison was born in Richmond, Surrey to father Thomas Morrison (1834–1901), son of a Scottish innkeeper Due to her father's work involving travel, Morrison's early education to the age of 15 was in four different countries, at five schools and awarded an exhibition.

Morrison went on to graduate in 1910, again with an exhibition, from Girton College, Cambridge with First Class Honours in Modern and Medieval Languages Tripos,

Legal career In 1922 she and Mary Pickup, Mary Sykes, and Maud Crofts became the first women in England to qualify as solicitors; Morrison was the first of them to finish her articles, and was the first woman admitted to the role of solicitor, Morrison refused to use her married name and petitioned court officials to be refer in court records, to her profession not her marital status.

Morrison was said to 'set high standard of determination and dedication to her profession for the women who came after her.' Morrison took on cases which were considered socially challenging, such as acting for prostitutes in court, acted for the Women and Children's' Protection Society and the Becontree Estate protesters in 1932. Keen to see reform of divorce laws, she had a modern attitude to gender equality, and was not supportive of women taking advantage of their husbands nor of men who mistreated their wives. She was said to have taken steps 'to shield her 17-year-old male articled clerk from the details of the more brutal and salacious cases that she dealt with.' Her obituary in the local press Herefordshire Mercury, praised 'the generosity and compassion of a complex and at times gruff and eccentric woman'. The 1919 Club for women solicitors, (succeeded by the Association of Women Solicitors) of which she was a founder member kept a minute's silence when her death was announced.

She was also a Soroptimist.

Legacy By 1967, 2.7% of solicitors in England were women, by 1997 32% and by the centenary of Morrison's admission to the profession over 52% of qualified solicitors are women.

In 1999, Lady Hale became the first female Law Lord, and in 2009 became the first woman to be a Justice of the Supreme Court. Lady Hale became President of the Supreme Court in 2017, stepping down on 10 January 2020.