According to the historic record of the NH Bar Association, the first woman admitted to the New Hampshire Bar Association was Agnes Winifred McLaughlin admitted in 1917. But McLaughlin was NOT the first woman lawyer practicing in New Hampshire. That honor, and the shoulders upon whom all women attorneys stand belong to a woman named Marilla Marks Young Ricker. Learn about this extraordinary woman's career as a lawyer and advocate for the poor and downtrodden, and hear NH's recipient of the Marilla Ricker Award Attorney Maureen Raiche Manning interviewed about the honor.
Today almost anyone from NH can name dozens of exceedingly fine women lawyers. Jean K. Burling, was the first female judge in NH in 1973.
Attorney Linda S. Delianis was first appointed to the NH Superior Court and then served with distinction as NH's first female Chief Justice of the NH Supreme Court.
Today Associate Justice Carol Ann Conboy from the NH Supreme Court carries on the tradition of service.
Landya Boyer McCafferty (born September 19, 1962) is the Chief United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire. She is the first female judge to serve in the District of New Hampshire.
Even today one cannot miss the impact that Kelly Ayotte (1993): First female Attorney General of New Hampshire (2004-2009) continues to have, now in the political arena.
• Emily Gray Rice (1984):[11][12] First female to serve as a U.S. Attorney for New Hampshire (2016)
Bar Associations[edit]
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• Patti Blanchette and Susan B. Carbon:[13][14] First females to serve respectively as the President of the New Hampshire Bar Association (1992-1993; 1993-1994)
• Maureen Raiche Manning:[15] First female to serve as President of the New Hampshire Women's Bar Association (1998)
• And there are scores of others: Tina Nadeau, Ellen Arnold, whom I first met when she was counsel to the New Hampshire Senate and has represented Dartmouth College among others, Leslie Nixon, Cathy Green, Donna Brown, Congresswoman Ann McLane Kuster,
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• All of these remarkable women stand on the shoulders of one extraordinary woman named Marilla Ricker of New Durham, NH. Who was never formally recognized by the NH Bar Association, though she practiced Law in New Hampshire for the latter part of her life by special dispensation from the NH Supreme Court often in partnership with other NH Attorneys.
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• Anyone who met Marilla as a very young child would have recognized that here was a person who would leave her mark. At only three she was cutting out headlines from local newspapers and asking her mother and father to explain the meaning of large words. By 4 she was reading herself. At 16, having been turned down in her application to become a nurse for Union troops in the Civil War, she became a teacher and would subsequently teach in both Dover and Lee, NH
1870 She first tried to vote in Dover and each year thereafter for 30 years
1882 - Admitted to the DC Bar
1884 First woman
1891 - Admitted to practice Law before the US Supreme Court (51 years old)
1897 Applied to be Ambassador to Colombia (57 Years old)
1910 (70 years old) Applied to run for Governor but was refused a place on the ballot because of her gender., yet she campaigned vigorously throughout the campaign nonetheless, insisting that she was seeking to get people used to the idea of a woman governor.
2016 Put her portrait in the NH Statehouse - Artist: Kate Gridley, Bill Sponsor: Renny Cushing
2002 Thesis on Marilla Rickert by Lee Ann Richey of Stanford University - PDF
Katherine O'Brien - "True Light" the Life of Marilla Ricker
