Ruth Kern

Ruth Ellen Kern (August 14, 1914 – January 26, 2002) was an American lawyer, community leader and feminist. Kern was an early pioneer in law for women in El Paso, Texas. She was also outspoken against myths regarding violence against women, sharing her own experiences with rape with the public. Kern was an active member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and a lawsuit she filed for an inmate led to El Paso County constructing a new jail with better conditions for inmates.

Biography Kern was born in Chicago to Swedish immigrants and grew up poor in the South Side. At the college of law, she was the only woman in her class and she earned the Kappa Beta Pi Honor Key. She was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1946. She often remarked that when she applied for a job as a lawyer the law firms looked at her like she was from Mars because they had never seen a woman lawyer before. Kern worked as a housewife and did civic work for the next fifteen years before she decided to go back into law. She started her own private practice in 1968, since law firms weren't hiring many women in the city. Her practice was known as Kern & Rosen and Kern took care of family law, while her partner, Stanley Rosen worked on business law. She often took on indigent criminal defense cases. Kern used her own experiences to dismiss myths about rape. She also served as vice chair of a shelter for women facing domestic violence, the Transitional Living Center, which she co-founded in 1977. Kern also co-founded and served as the first president of the El Paso Women's Bar Association.

In 1993, Kern was inducted into the El Paso Women's Hall of Fame. Her twin children from her second marriage, David Kern and Suzan Kern, are both practicing attorneys who cite their mother's example as the reason they pursued law careers. They are her living legacy. Ruth Kern died in her home from an illness on January 26, 2002.