Louise Raggio

Louise Raggio (June 15, 1919 – January 23, 2011) was a Texas lawyer for more than fifty years. She was the first female prosecutor in Dallas County, Texas. ), and the Texas Family Code.

Early life Louise Hilma Ballerstedt was born on June 15, 1919 to first generation parents of Swedish and German descent. at her grandmother's home in Austin, Texas. She graduated as valedictorian from her high school in Austin and was the first in her family to go to college. One of her quotes in the KERA Texas TrailerBlazer about her sums up the situation of a woman at the altar in Texas: "When a man and woman got married, they were one, and he was the one."

Louise Raggio began to fight for the rights of women and became the first female prosecutor in Dallas County, Texas in 1954. Years later, as Chair of the Family Law Section of the State Bar of Texas, she spearheaded the Bar's Task Force on Family Law which led to the passage of the landmark Marital Property Act of 1967. This act gave married women, for the first time, the same rights a single women by removing by law the "disabilities of coverture" giving a married woman's husband control over her property, even that that she owned prior to the marriage. For her stealthy work in securing this law, and for her later work on the Texas Family Code, she was awarded the highest award bestowed by the State Bar of Texas, the President's Award, and was given the moniker and honor as "The Mother of Family Law in Texas." In 1995, she received the prestigious award of the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award and Texas Trailblazer Award in 1997. Then, in 2011, the Louise B. Raggio ABA Legacy Award was created in her name to honor individuals who have made significant contributions to the development of family law.

Among other awards received and named after her, the Louise Raggio Endowed Lecture Series was established in Southern Methodist University (SMU), first in the Women's Studies Program and later in the SMU Dedman School of Law. Past lecturers have included Gloria Steinem, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Governor Ann Richards, Valerie Plame, Herb Kelleher, Senators Claire McCaskill and Kelly Ayotte, Barbara Bush (younger), and Amal Clooney. Death Louise Raggio died on January 23, 2011.