Mabel Walker Willebrandt

Mabel Walker Willebrandt (May 23, 1889 – April 6, 1963), popularly known to her contemporaries as the First Lady of Law, was an American lawyer who served as the United States Assistant Attorney General from 1921 to 1929, handling cases concerning violations of the Volstead Act, federal taxation, and the Bureau of Federal Prisons during the Prohibition era. For enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, the prohibition against the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, she also earned herself a nickname “Prohibition Portia”.

Early life and career Willebrandt was born Mabel Elizabeth Walker in Woodsdale, Kansas, on May 23, 1889. Her father, David W. Walker, edited a local newspaper. In February 1910, she married Arthur Willebrandt, the principal of the school where she was teaching, and they moved to Phoenix, where he recuperated from tuberculosis while she finished college and supported them on a teacher's salary. She graduated from Tempe Normal School, later Arizona State University, in 1911.

In 1912, the Willebrandts moved to Los Angeles, where she taught elementary school and attended night classes at the law school of the University of Southern California. She received her law degree from the University of Southern California in 1916 and an LL.M. a year later. During her time at USC, she was a member of Phi Delta Delta legal sorority. The Willebrandts separated in 1916 and divorced in 1924. Her efforts led courts to permit the testimony of both men and women. She also campaigned successfully for the enactment of a revised community property statute at the state level.

Although a personal opponent of Prohibition, Willebrandt aggressively upheld the Volstead Act. She took the work of enforcing Prohibition so seriously that the press christened her, among other nicknames, "Deborah of the Drys" and "Mrs. Firebrand."

Her extensive writing and speech-making in support of Prohibition won praise from President Herbert Hoover. After Hoover's election, the press declared that "no other woman has ever had so much influence on a presidential campaign."

In 1950, Willebrandt served as counsel to the Screen Directors Guild during a labor hearing.

Willebrandt was the first woman to chair a committee of the ABA, heading its committee on aeronautical law.

Willebrandt died of lung cancer in Riverside, California, on April 6, 1963. She was survived by her adopted daughter, Dorothy Rae. Her lifelong friend, Judge John J. Sirica, who would later preside over the Watergate case, said of her, "If Mabel had worn trousers, she could have been president."

In popular culture The 2010 HBO television series Boardwalk Empire features Assistant U.S. Attorney Esther Randolph, a character based on and styled after Willebrandt, portrayed by Julianne Nicholson. Willebrandt was featured prominently in the 2011 PBS miniseries Prohibition, by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. Her role as assistant attorney general in the federal prosecution of rum runners during Prohibition was featured in The Real McCoy, a PBS bio-documentary of bootlegger Bill McCoy, one of the main proponents of illegal import of alcohol during the early days of Prohibition.