THE EVOLUTION AND TRANSFORMATION OF WOMEN IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN LEGAL PROFESSION
It is no secret that for centuries, across diverse jurisdictions, the legal profession has been entrenched as a male-dominated domain, with women systematically excluded from practice and denied equal participation. The gradual integration of women into the legal field is not merely a narrative of professional inclusion, but one of resilience, constitutional transformation, and the dismantling of entrenched barriers. It stands as a powerful indicator of society’s progression towards substantive equality and the affirmation of constitutional values.
This Women’s Month provides an opportunity to reflect critically on the historical exclusion of women from the profession, to assess the present strides made towards gender parity, and to envision the future trajectory of transformation. The story of women in law is inseparable from broader struggles for dignity, equality, and justice — and it reminds us that while progress has been achieved, the revolutionary work of reshaping the profession remains ongoing.
The entry of women into the legal profession was neither immediate nor uncontested. Across the world, the earliest breakthroughs were hard-won, often achieved against entrenched prejudice and institutional resistance.
In 1869, Arabella Mansfield was admitted to the bar in Burlington, Iowa, becoming the first woman lawyer in the United States. Her admission was a watershed moment that challenged prevailing gender barriers and set a precedent for women’s entry into the profession. Mansfield pursued further academic qualifications, earning an M.A. in 1870 and an LL.B. in 1872, while also contributing to the women’s suffrage movement. Iowa’s decision to formally allow women to obtain law licenses established an early precedent for the rest of the country.
Three years later, Charlotte E. Ray became the first African-American woman admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. Despite her expertise in corporate law and her Howard University connections, Ray struggled to attract clients due to entrenched racial and gender prejudice. Contemporary accounts observed that “Miss Ray, although a lawyer of decided ability, on account of prejudice was not able to obtain sufficient legal business and had to give up active practice.” Her experience illustrates the compounded barriers faced by women of colour in the profession.
Elsewhere in the world, similar milestones were achieved. In Canada and New Zealand, Clara Brett Martin and Ethel Benjamin were admitted in 1897, becoming the first women lawyers in their respective jurisdictions. In India, Cornelia Sorabji was admitted to Bombay University in 1888, later sitting for the LL.B. examination in 1897 and the pleader’s examination at the Allahabad High Court in 1899. She became the first female advocate in India, though she was not formally recognized as a barrister until 1923, when legislation finally removed the prohibition on women practising law.
The late twentieth century brought further transformative figures. In 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed as the second woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court, following Sandra Day O’Connor. Through landmark cases on gender equality, Ginsburg insisted that the law must recognize women as full and equal citizens. In United States v. Virginia (1996), she authored the majority opinion striking down the Virginia Military Institute’s male-only admissions policy, affirming that the Equal Protection Clause required women to be afforded “equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities.” By rejecting the notion of separate women’s programs as inherently unequal, she entrenched the principle of substantive equality.
In South Africa, the transformation came later. The Women Legal Practitioners Act 7 of 1923 was the first statute to formally permit women to be admitted as attorneys and advocates, overturning exclusionary precedent such as Incorporated Law Society v Wookey (1912). In that same year, Constance Mary Hall became the first woman admitted as an attorney, while Irene Geffen was admitted as the first female advocate to the Transvaal Bar. The racial hierarchies of apartheid meant that further breakthroughs were delayed: in 1962, Olga Brink became the first coloured woman admitted as an advocate, and in 1967, Desiree Finca became the first black woman admitted as a legal practitioner.
These pioneering women opened the doors for subsequent generations, but their achievements alone did not dismantle systemic exclusion. The profession required further facilitation through legislative reform, institutional transformation, and constitutional guarantees of equality to entrench meaningful change. Their courage and persistence laid the foundation for the ongoing struggle to transform the legal profession into one that reflects the values of equality, dignity, and justice.
For much of its history, the legal profession operated as a gentlemen’s club, an exclusive domain in which women were tolerated at the margins but seldom admitted into the centres of influence. That culture has not disappeared. It continues to manifest in male-dominated networking spaces that function like private clubs, where decisions about appointments, briefing patterns, and promotions are still informally brokered. These spaces remain largely inaccessible to women, leaving them outside the circles where influence and opportunity are exchanged.
The club culture is reinforced both overtly and subtly, shaping institutional practices in ways that persist today. Recruitment and promotion processes often reflect this exclusivity, requiring women to prove their competence twice over before being regarded as equals. The profession therefore continues to operate on a model where merit is filtered through gendered expectations, and where women’s progression is constrained not by ability but by entrenched cultural and structural bias that remains embedded in the system.One of the most enduring barriers in the legal profession is the glass ceiling, which continues to obstruct women’s advancement despite their growing presence in practice. Although women now enter the profession in significant numbers, senior partnerships, bar councils, and judicial appointments remain largely male. Authority in law is still treated as inherently masculine, and women who aspire to leadership frequently encounter invisible yet impenetrable barriers that prevent progression.
Competence alone does not guarantee recognition. Women are often overlooked because the unwritten rules of the profession continue to favour familiarity, tradition, and entrenched networks of influence. Even as large cohorts of women are admitted annually, this influx has not translated into proportional representation at the highest levels of practice. The persistence of these disparities demonstrates that the glass ceiling is not a relic of the past but an ongoing structural impediment, embedded in the culture and decision-making processes of the profession.
The challenge of intersectionality continues to compound exclusion in the legal profession. Women of colour, LGBTQ+ women, and women with disabilities face overlapping forms of discrimination that magnify the difficulty of entry and advancement. These intersecting identities create compounded disadvantages that remain embedded in recruitment, briefing patterns, and promotion practices.
For example, women of colour still encounter systemic biases rooted in both race and gender, leaving them doubly disadvantaged in access to opportunities and recognition. Women from poorer backgrounds often struggle to gain entry into elite law schools or secure clerkships, which remain gateways to prestigious careers. Their male counterparts from similar socio-economic circumstances may nevertheless benefit from entrenched “old boys’ networks” that continue to exclude women.
Another entrenched obstacle is the persistence of unequal work allocation within the profession. Women attorneys continue to be channelled into practice areas regarded as “soft,” such as family law, estates, and maintenance matters, while men dominate commercial litigation, mergers, and corporate advisory work. This division is not incidental; it reflects longstanding patterns that remain embedded in briefing practices and institutional culture.
The consequences are significant. These allocations entrench disparities in earnings, visibility, and career progression, ensuring that women’s contributions are undervalued and their professional trajectories constrained. Even today, the most lucrative and high-profile matters are disproportionately briefed to male counsel, while women are steered toward areas perceived as less commercially or strategically significant. The result is a profession where structural bias in work distribution continues to limit women’s access to influence, recognition, and leadership.
The absence of mentorship and role models continues to perpetuate cycles of exclusion within the legal profession. With relatively few women occupying senior positions, younger practitioners often lack the guidance necessary to navigate the demanding and adversarial culture of practice. This deficit in mentorship is not incidental; it reflects structural gaps in how the profession cultivates and supports talent.
The consequences are ongoing. Many women leave practice prematurely, not because of a lack of ability, but because of a lack of sustained support. Without access to mentors who can provide strategic advice, open doors to briefing opportunities, or model pathways to leadership, women remain disproportionately disadvantaged. The profession therefore continues to lose capable practitioners to attrition, reinforcing the very imbalance that mentorship could help to dismantle.
The profession’s long hours and adversarial ethos continue to generate acute work–life balance pressures. Women still disproportionately carry the burden of family responsibilities, and in the absence of structural support, many are compelled into career breaks or premature exits from practice. This dynamic is not historical; it remains embedded in the profession today, reinforcing the perception that women cannot sustain long-term careers in law.
The persistence of these pressures underscores a structural failure to accommodate diverse professional realities. Without institutional mechanisms such as flexible briefing practices, equitable parental leave policies, and genuine support for caregiving responsibilities, women remain at heightened risk of attrition. The result is a profession that continues to lose capable practitioners, perpetuating gender imbalance at senior levels and entrenching the very stereotypes that structural reform is meant to dismantle.
Finally, institutional bias has remained a stubborn reality. This bias is not abstract; it is evident in briefing patterns and proportional representation at senior levels within law firms or in leadership structures. The persistence of this imbalance demonstrates an embeddedness in the mechanisms through which opportunity and recognition are distributed in the profession today.
Despite entrenched challenges, the legal profession has undergone profound and continuing transformation in recent decades.
Today, more women than men are admitted as attorneys each year in South Africa, a striking reversal of historical exclusion. This demographic shift signals not only numerical change but also a reshaping of professional culture, as women increasingly define the future trajectory of the profession.
The Legal Practice Act of 2014 has been pivotal. By unifying attorneys and advocates under a single regulatory framework, the Act dismantled hierarchical divides and created opportunities for greater representation. It embedded transformation imperatives into the statutory fabric of the profession, ensuring that gender equality is not aspirational but a mandated priority.
Complementing this, Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) initiatives have incentivised firms to promote women into leadership roles, diversify ownership structures, and establish mentorship pipelines. These measures have begun to erode the “old boys’ club” culture, opening doors that were once firmly closed.
The Judicial Service Commission has played a critical role by prioritising gender representation in judicial appointments. This commitment has produced historic milestones, including the appointment of female Judge Presidents across multiple divisions, signalling that women are not only present but leading in spaces once reserved for men.
The culmination of this transformation is symbolised by the appointment of South Africa’s Chief Justice, Justice Mandisa Maya. This achievement is not merely symbolic; it represents the dismantling of centuries-old barriers and affirms that women are not only participants in the legal landscape, but also leaders at the highest echelons of the judiciary. It is a powerful reminder that the struggle for equality, though unfinished, has yielded victories that redefine the profession and inspire future generations.
Transformation has also been advanced through pioneering jurisprudence. Justice Maya authored a judgment in University of the Free State v Afriforum (CCT101/17) [2017] ZACC 48; 2018 (2) SA 185 (CC); 2018 (4) BCLR 387 (CC) in isiXhosa, the first of its kind in a superior court. The case concerned the university’s language policy and the phasing out of Afrikaans as a primary medium of instruction. By delivering the judgment in isiXhosa, she affirmed linguistic diversity and access to justice, breaking both substantive and linguistic barriers in South African law.
Equally transformative, Justice Yvonne Mokgoro has integrated African philosophical principles such as ubuntu into constitutional reasoning, reshaping the moral foundation of South African jurisprudence. Her work demonstrated that constitutional interpretation must reflect lived realities and indigenous values, not only abstract doctrine.
Beyond the bench, a plethora of South African women lawyers have represented the country at the United Nations and other international forums, influencing global discourse on gender justice and human rights. Their advocacy has ensured that South Africa’s transformation resonates beyond national borders.
In academia, a legal Professor, Puseletso Letete, of the University of Johannesburg launched the iKamva Initiative, a program designed to mentor and support emerging female legal practitioners. This initiative addresses structural gaps in mentorship and access, while other academics and practitioners have reshaped curricula to integrate constitutional values, gender studies, and African customary law into mainstream legal education. These reforms ensure that transformation is embedded not only in practice but in the intellectual foundations of the profession.
The question many women, and particularly women in the legal profession, continue to ask is: “When will we no longer need to have these conversations? When will equality finally be realised?” As Judge Nelisa Phiwokazi Mali observed during a NADEL Women’s Month event on 20 August 2026, held at Melrose Arch, the reality is that these conversations must continue. The struggle initiated by the women who marched to the Union Buildings decades ago remains unfinished, and it will likely require another generation, perhaps forty or fifty years, before wholistic transformation is not only done but seen to be done.
Yet, all is not lost. Change, however incremental, is evident. Women bring a distinctive essence to the legal field: from drafting groundbreaking judgments in indigenous languages to women judges, academics and practitioners identifying blind spots in the legal system and advancing solutions that broaden accessibility and justice. These contributions demonstrate that women’s participation is not peripheral but transformative.
Viewed through an impact lens, the data increasingly confirms that women’s growing presence in the profession correlates with gender-sensitive justice outcomes and legislation that addresses systemic inequities in society. The evolution of women in law is therefore a story of courage and constitutional transformation: from exclusion under archaic statutes to leadership in apex courts, women have reshaped the profession.
Still, the journey is unfinished. Transformation is a continuous process, unfolding to ensure that women not only enter the profession but thrive at its highest levels. The responsibility of this generation, and those that follow, is to sustain the momentum, deepen the reforms, and ensure that equality in law is not aspirational rhetoric but lived reality.
Candidate Attorney
