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Item
Title
D101757-4
Date(s)
- 1956-09-19 (Creation)
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Studio portrait of Judge Elizabeth Shackleford. Judge Shackleford, who died in 1989 at the age of 94, was known for championing the causes of minorities and the disadvantaged. The daughter of a lawyer, she was admitted to the Washington State Bar in 1922 without first going to law school. She obtained an undergraduate degree from the College of Puget Sound in 1918 and learned enough as an apprentice in her father's, Pierce County Superior Court Judge John Shackleford's, office to pass the state bar exam. She remained with her father's firm until his death in 1927. She was only one of 5 female lawyers in the area at that time and clients were scarce, so she worked for the IRS while building her practice. In the fifties and sixties, she was the only area female attorney and one of few who took black clients. She was appointed Pierce County justice court judge in 1954, a title that changed in '63 to district court judge, and a position that she held until 1967. She practiced law until her retirement at the age of 85 in 1981. She was honored by black, Indian and religious groups in a special ceremony in 1981 in recognition of her efforts to help black women and businessmen establish clubhouses in Tacoma and for providing free legal assistance to minorities. Judge Shackleford never married and remained in Tacoma, her birthplace, most of her life. (TNT 9-6-1989, pg B-4)
Shackleford, Elizabeth; Judges--Tacoma--1950-1960;