Neva Bennett Talley-Morris: Leading the Way for Women Lawyers

Women have fought for equality in the legal field throughout the history of the United States. In 1869, Arabella Mansfield of Iowa became the first female lawyer to be admitted to the practice of law in the United States.1 Many states were still resistant to allowing women to practice law at this time, and a crushing blow would come only a few years later. In 1873, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the exclusion of women from admission to the bar of a state did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.2 Once again, women were relegated behind men in terms of their careers and their rights as citizens.

Despite these challenges, women persisted in pressing for admission to law schools and state bars with moderate success throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s even though they were still excluded from most legal associations at the time.3 In 1899, the Women Lawyers’ Club was founded by a group of 18 women lawyers in New York City, and this group eventually became the National

Association of Women Lawyers (“NAWL”) in 1923.4 In 1918, Judge Mary Belle Grossman and Mary Florence Lanthrop were the first two women admitted to the American Bar Association.5 In 1965, NAWL member Lorna E. Lockwood became the first woman chief justice of any state.6 It was not until 1995 that the first woman, Roberta Cooper Ramo, was elected President of the American Bar Association.7

One female attorney who led the way in the legal field for so many women in Arkansas and across the country is Neva Bennett Talley-Morris. It is important to consider Arkansas’ history to understand why Neva was such a trailblazer. Women were not allowed admission to the Arkansas bar until the legislature authorized it by statute in 1917.8 Between 1917 and 1959, the number of women admitted to the practice of law in Arkansas was approximately 150.9 Only 54 women were admitted to the Arkansas bar between 1940 and 1970, but the women who did choose to enter the legal field paved the way for women to take on leadership roles in legal associations and contribute to legal scholarship.10 Neva not only joined the legal field at a time when so few women did so, but she consistently broke the glass ceiling for female lawyers with her leadership roles in multiple legal associations.

Neva Bennett Talley-Morris was born on October 12, 1909, in Judsonia, Arkansas.11 Neva showed her perseverance early in life when she survived a struggle with polio at the age of two.12 In her early life, she showed her competitive streak by winning the cup in a statewide geometry contest.13 Neva graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from Ouachita Baptist University in 1930, worked as a teacher, and then completed her Master’s degree in School Administration to qualify as a public school principal when most principals at this time were men.14 While married to Cecil C. Talley, an attorney in Arkansas, she worked in his law office and learned enough to pass the bar exam.15 She obtained her license to practice law in 1947 and was admitted to practice at the Supreme Court of the United States in 1950.16 At the age of 75, Neva would receive an honorary doctorate in Philosophy of Law from the World University in Heidelberg, Germany.17

Becoming a licensed attorney as a woman in the 1940s was already a huge accomplishment, but it is Neva’s leadership and scholarship that really sets her apart. After receiving her law license, Neva practiced law with her husband and, after his death, continued to practice law as a solo practitioner in Little Rock and North Little Rock, Arkansas, until her retirement.18 Neva remained an active lawyer until Alzheimer’s disease began taking over later in life, and at that point she moved to Judsonia to live in a nursing home close to her brother.19

Neva was an early supporter of women in the legal profession. She served as president of the Little Rock Association of Women Lawyers in 1950, and once remarked, “We were not competitive with each other. We helped one another.”20 By 1950, Neva was also the legislative director of the NAWL South Central Region.21 Neva served as President of NAWL from 1956–1957, the first Arkansas lawyer to serve in that position.22 During her address before the Northwest Regional Breakfast Meeting of Women Lawyers in 1950, she said, “There might have been a time when a woman lawyer could have been referred to as an oddity because the general public was unaccustomed to the idea of women entering this career; but in today’s enlightened world it is indeed an ‘odd’ community which does not accept upon full and equal status, the woman and the man lawyer of equal training, ability, and experience.”23 She used her position in NAWL to work toward the advancement of women in judicial positions; for example, meeting with Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Jr., and Deputy Attorney General William Rogers to urge President Eisenhower to nominate Justice Florence E. Allen, the first woman to sit on any federal bench of general jurisdiction, to the Supreme Court of the United States.24 Neva received a Merit Award from NAWL in 1961 for her extensive work in the organization.25

Neva was also an active member of the Arkansas Association of Women Lawyers (“AAWL”), and her papers from 1964 to 1978 are found in the Arkansas State Archives.26 AAWL was informally founded in 1938 and drew up its original constitution on January 7, 1967, with a mission to further the interest of women lawyers and their service to the legal profession.27 In 1970, AAWL presented Neva with a plaque in the shape of the state of Arkansas, and it stated in part: “in recognition of her outstanding achievement on being elected Chairman of the Family Section of the American Bar Association thereby becoming the first woman in the history of the ABA to serve as Chairman of one of its Sections.”28

Neva was among the original founding council members of the Family Law Section of the American Bar Association at the 1958 convention in Los Angeles, California, and she served as the Section’s Secretary from 1963 to 1969.29 At the first annual meeting of the Family Law

Section at the American Bar Association Annual Meeting in Bal Harbour, Florida, in August of 1959, Neva introduced a resolution with several goals for the Skye Martin is an attorney for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Little Rock, Arkansas. She is a Past President of the Arkansas Association of Women Lawyers.

Section.30 She wanted the Section to triple in membership, to publicize among lawyers the importance of family law, to establish a family law center at the ABA’s national headquarters, to encourage state bar groups to promote family law, and to develop a Family Law Section publication.31 Neva served as a Special Judge of the Circuit Court of Arkansas during her time as Section Secretary, the second woman ever to be so designated.32 In 1970, Neva served as a Delegate of the ABA on the Arkansas Council of Children and Youth and also served on Governor Winthrop Rockefeller’s Task Force for the White House Conference on Children and Youth.33

Even though Neva was one of the hardest-working members of the Family Law Section, only men had been elected to Chair positions thus far.34 In 1969, a group of women lawyers in Dallas, Texas, decided to pack the ABA convention during elections to get Neva elected as Chair.35 The plan was a success, and Neva became the first female Chair of a section of the American Bar Association in its 92-year history at her election in 1969.36 At the completion of her term in 1970, she then became the first woman to be elected from one of the 21 sections of the American Bar Association to serve as a Section Delegate to the House of Delegates.37

Although Neva was so busy on the national legal scene in the 1950s and 1960s, she also took on leadership roles in her local legal organizations. In 1965, Neva was elected to the Board of the Pulaski County Legal Aid Bureau and also to the Committee on the Unauthorized Practice of Law in Arkansas of the Arkansas Bar Association and of the Pulaski County Bar Association.38 Neva received the Arkansas Bar Association’s Distinguished Service Award in 1970, and she received the Outstanding Lawyer-Citizen Award in 1978.39 Neva authored two important textbooks in the 1970s: Family Law Practice and Procedure Handbook and Appellate Practice and Procedure. Neva was considered an expert on family law, and her Family Law Practice and Procedure Handbook tackled the national trend of nofault divorces and discussed child custody along with jurisdictional issues involved in intra- and interstate litigation.40 With her myriad of accomplishments, Neva was named Countess of Pulaski County in 1969.41

Later in her life, Neva widened her focus to a global scale and became deeply involved in using the law as a way of striving toward world peace. She was a member of the World Peace Through Law Center’s Planning and Goals committee and worked with her committee to plan and attend peace conferences in Spain, Egypt, Brazil, the Philippines, Cairo, and Korea throughout the early 1980s.42 Through her work with the committee, Neva participated in discussions on freedom of press, human rights, world health, food and drug laws, and training programs for rural lawyers in third world countries.43 Neva was a panelist at the Center’s twelfth conference in Berlin, Germany, in 1985 and was given a private audience with Pope John Paul II to honor his efforts toward global peace.44 Later that same year, she visited The Republic of China as a member of a delegation of 15 women lawyers and guests under the sponsorship of the People to People International Citizen Ambassador Program.45 In 1987, she attended a National Conference on Peacemaking in Denver, followed by a planning session in Washington D.C. for her World Peace Through Law Center’s conference.46

This has not been an exhaustive list of Neva's accomplishments because she was constantly taking on new challenges throughout her life and accepting leadership roles at a time when the legal field was still predominated by men. Throughout her life, Neva looked for ways to lead, ways to help, and ways to add to the growing knowledge of family law. Along the way, she consistently mentored and encouraged other women lawyers and worked on advancing the cause of women in the legal profession through her leadership in various legal organizations including the American Bar Association, the National Association of Women Lawyers, the Arkansas Bar Association, the Pulaski County Bar Association, the Little Rock Association of Women Lawyers, and the Arkansas Association of Women Lawyers. She is a shining example of a woman lawyer who paved the way for women across the country to excel and lead in the legal profession.

Endnotes:

1. Selma Moidel Smith, A Century of Achievement: The Centennial of the National Association of Women Lawyers, 85 Women Law. J. 2, p. 19 (Summer 1999).

2. Bradwell v. State, 83 U.S. 130, 139 (1872).

3. Frances Mitchell Ross, Reforming the Bar: Women and the Arkansas Legal Profession, 20 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 869, 872 (1998), available at: https://lawrepository. ualr.edu/lawreview/vol20/iss4/2.

4. National Association of Women Lawyers: NAWL History, http://www.nawl.org/p/cm/ Id/fid=20#pres (last visited Oct. 19, 2022).

5. Id.

6. Id.

7. Id.

8. Women in the Law, 28 W. Va. L. Rev. 322 (1922), available at https:// researchrepository.wvu.edu/wclr/vol28/ iss4/18.

9. Jacqueline S. Wright, Women of the Law in Arkansas 1918-1959, 19 Ark. Law. 17, 17–19 (Jan. 1985).

10. Ross, supra note 3, at 882.

11. Evergreen Cemetery Files, available at http://www.argenweb.net/white/cems/ Evergreen_Cemetery_files/evergreen_ cemetery_judsonia_old.htm.

12. Newsletter, Ouachita Baptist University Alumni, June 1, 1986.

13. Wright, supra note 9, at 20.

14. Wright, supra note 9, at 20. See also Newsletter, Ouachita Baptist University Alumni, Spring 1970.

15. In Memorium, Neva Bennett TalleyMorris, 31 Ark. Law. 52, 52 (Fall 1996).

16. Id.

17. Newsletter, Ouachita Baptist University Alumni, July 1985.

18. Roster of Private Practitioners, 36 Women Law. J. 37 (1950). See also Bennett v. Miles, 212 Ark. 273 (1947) (Neva

B. Talley, Cecil C. Talley, W.E. Phipps, and Wm. J. Kirby were counsel for the appellant).

19. In Memorium, Neva Bennett TalleyMorris, 31 Ark. Law. 52, 52 (Fall 1996).

20. Wright, supra note 9, at 18, 20. See also Muriel E. Richter, Lawyers in the News, 36 Women Law. J. 21, 21 (1950).

21. Richter, supra note 20, at 21.

22. Ross, supra note 3, at 882.

23. Neva B. Talley, Women Lawyers of

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, 46 Women Law. J. 21 (Summer 1960).

24. Smith, supra note 1, at 31.

25. Carl F. Ingraham, Says Our Chairman, The Family Lawyer, Vol. 3, No. 3 (March 1962).

26. Arkansas Association of Women Lawyers records, Arkansas State Archives, Little Rock, Arkansas.

27. Id.

28. Section Chairman is Honoree as Governor Issues Proclamation, The Family Law Newsletter, Vol. 11, No. 2, p. 3 (Feb. 1970).

29. James P. O’Falrity, The Family Law Section Celebrates its Silver Anniversary, Family Advocate, Vol. 6, No. 1, p. 35–36 (Summer 1983).

30. Id.

31. Id.

32. In and Around Our Section, The Family Lawyer, Vol. 8, No. 1, p. 2 (Nov. 1966).

33. The Family Law Newsletter, Vol. 11, No. 2, p. 5 (Feb. 1970).

34. Louise B. Raggio, Women Lawyers in Family Law, Vol. 33 Family Law Quarterly, No. 3, p. 512 (Fall 1999).

35. Id.

36. Id. See also Newsletter, Ouachita Baptist University Alumni, Spring 1970.

37. Certificate Bestowed on Neva Talley, The Family Law Newsletter, Vol. 12, No. 1, p. 2 (Oct. 1970).

38. In and Around Our Section, The Family Lawyer, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 1–2 (Nov. 1965).

39. In Memorium, Neva Bennett TalleyMorris, 31 Ark. Law. 52, 52 (1996).

40. Doris Jonas Freed, Review of Family Law Practice and Procedure Handbook by Neva B. Talley-Morris, A.B.A. J., Vol. 61, No. 1 (Jan. 1975).

41. Around the Section, The Family Lawyer, Vol. 9, No. 4, p. 2 (March 1969).

42. Newsletter, Ouachita Baptist University Alumni, November 1983.

43. Family Advocate, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 43-48 (Summer 1984).

44. Newsletter, Ouachita Baptist University Alumni, July 1985.

45. Id.

46. Newsletter, Ouachita Baptist University Alumni, June 1986. ■

The Arkansas Association of Women Lawyers

AAWL Board of Directors for 2022-2023, left to right: Amie Wilcox, Shana Woodard Graves, Presley Turner, Nicole Stamm Winters, Vanessa Cash Adams, Bradey Camille Baltz, Sydney Rasch, Deanna Dorrough Ray, Skye Martin, Angela Griffith Mann, Judge LaTonya Austin Honorable, Sarah DeBusk, and Amanda Kennedy

The Arkansas Association of Women Lawyers, better known in the legal community as AAWL, is an organization devoted to the furtherance of the interests of women lawyers in the state of Arkansas. Founded in 1967, AAWL has grown in financial stability and diversity of membership and advanced its impact on the lives and careers of women practicing law in the state. In addition to being an organization that strives to have a positive impact on women in the legal field, AAWL provides continuing legal education to its members and fosters public service and high standards of conduct, integrity, learning and competence. One of the most impactful ways that AAWL promotes the careers of women in the legal profession is through the numerous scholarships it offers every year to women preparing to take the bar exam. These scholarships help fund bar prep courses or other needs of women who are preparing to take the bar exam after graduation from law school. AAWL’s annual fundraiser is the AAWL Holiday Brunch and Silent Auction held every December. It is a hugely popular event, and is the sole means for raising money to support AAWL’s scholarship program. Additionally, AAWL hosts clothing drives to provide business attire for female law students, which allows students to spend their resources in other areas.

The AAWL Board of Directors is made of a diverse group of women from a variety of practice areas and backgrounds. The mission of the Board of Directors is to help grow membership, increase fundraising, coordinate and host CLE events, offer social gathering opportunities, and select scholarship recipients every year.

To find out more about the Arkansas Association of Women Lawyers, please visit our website at Arkansas Association of Women Lawyers (arwomenlawyers.org). If you are interested in attending, donating to or sponsoring the Holiday Brunch, please visit Holiday Brunch & Auction (arwomenlawyers.org) or reach out to AAWL.

By Deanna Dorrough Ray, AAWL Board of Directors, Parliamentarian