Adams, Annette Abbott (1877–1956)

Annette Abbott Adams is best known as the first female lawyer to hold the positions of Assistant U.S. Attorney, U.S. Attorney, and Assistant Attorney General as well as a temporary judge pro tempore on the California Supreme Court. Adams was born in Prattville, California, in 1877, where she studied to become a teacher at the State Normal School in Chico, graduating in 1897. She taught for a period of years and was also a school principal but decided to further her education by going to the University of California, Berkeley, receiving a law degree in 1904 and a juris doctorate in 1912. She was one of the first women to graduate from Boalt Hall, where she met her future law partner, Marguerite Ogden, the daughter ...