Annette Adams

Annette Abbott Adams rewrote the legal record book in California. 

The first woman to serve as an assistant U.S. attorney general, in Woodrow Wilson’s administration, was also the first female U.S. attorney, the first woman to sit on a California appellate court and the first woman to sit, albeit temporarily, on the state Supreme Court.

Born in 1877, Adams began her career as a high school teacher. She was one of the first women to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley’s law school and with a classmate founded the first woman-owned private law firm in San Francisco.

She found her way into government work when she impressed John Preston, the U.S. attorney who later hired her. She prosecuted German spies during World War I before campaigning hard for Wilson in 1916.

As one of the top officials in the Justice Department, she was in charge of enforcing tax and custom laws and a groundbreaking law giving railroad workers an eight hour workday. She argued five cases before the United States Supreme Court. 

She resigned after a year to return to her home state, where she sat as a judge for one case before the California Supreme Court. 

The Justice Department says that her career “broke barriers for women in the legal profession, and established a precedent for women achieving high political office.”

— Rachel Frazin