This is a list of the first women lawyer(s) and judge(s) in South America. It includes the year in which the women were admitted to practice law (in parentheses). Also included are the first women in their country to achieve a certain distinction such as obtaining a law degree.
KEY FRA = Administrative division of France GBR = British overseas territory of the United Kingdom
Argentina
Lawyers María Angélica Barreda (1909) and Celia Tapias (1910): First female lawyers respectively in Argentina. Barreda was the first female law graduate in Argentina. María Romilda Servini: First female lawyer to work as a prosecutor in Argentina's criminal justice system (1974). She later became the first judge (and female) to return two minors appropriated during the civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983). Rosa Chiquichano (1999): First female lawyer of Tehuelche (Mapuche) origin in Argentina. She was also the first Mapuche female lawyer in the Chubut Province, Argentina. Karina Miguel (c. 2003): First Roma (female) lawyer in Argentina Jordana Duarte Martinelli (2020): First Guarani female lawyer in Argentina María Gabriela San Martín: First female lawyer elected to the Council of the Judiciary in Argentina (2020) Antonela Guevara (2023): First Selkʼnam (female) lawyer in Tierra del Fuego [Argentina and Chile] Mariel Tschieder: First female to serve as the President of the Argentine Federation of Bar Associations (FACA) (2024)
General Defender and Attorney General Stella Maris Martínez: First female to serve as the General Defender of the Nation of Argentina (2006) Alejandra Gils Carbó: First female to serve as the Attorney General of Argentina (2012)
Judicial officers Maria Luisa Anastasi de Walger: First female judge in Argentina (1955) Margarita Argúas (1925): First female appointed as the Minister (Judge) of the Supreme Court of Argentina (1970) Alicia Oliveira: First female to serve as a Judge of the Juvenile Correctional Court of the Federal Capital in Argentina (1973) Elsa Kelly: First female judge of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (2011) Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi: First Argentinian female appointed as the President of the International Criminal Court (2015) Verónica Gómez: First Argentinian female to serve as a Judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (2016) Inés Weinberg de Roca: First Argentinian (female) to serve as a Judge of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal and its President (2009)
Bolivia
Esilda Villa (1929): First female lawyer in Bolivia Nelly Sfeir Gonzalez: First president of reconstituted Union Femenina Universitaria (Union of Women University Students). A licensed lawyer in Bolivia, she was also a law student activist and protest organizer that demanded the vote for women (1952). Graciela Lara de Penaranda: First female lawyer to receive a doctorate in Altos Estudios Militares (DAEM) [HIgher Military Studies] (1966) María Josefa Saavedra: First female appointed as a Minister (Judge) of the Supreme Court of Justice of Bolivia (1972) Elizabeth Iñiguez de Salinas and Silvia Salame Farjat: First females to serve as titular magistrates of the Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal (1999; formerly the Constitutional Court of Bolivia when established in 1998). Iñiguez de Salinas later became the first female President of the same court. Maria Antonieta Pizza Bilbao: First female to serve as the President of the National Bar Association of Bolivia (2000) Elena Lowenthal: First female appointed as the Vocal (District Judges) for the Superior Court of Bolivia (2002) Amalia Morales: First Aymara female to become a judge in Bolivia (2010) Cristina Mamani: First indigenous (Aymara) female elected as a judge in Bolivia (2011) Abigail Salas: First female candidate for the Attorney General of Bolivia (2012). Salas was unsuccessful, as she was disqualified from the race. María Cristina Diaz Sosa: First female to serve as President of the Supreme Court of Justice of Bolivia (2019)
Brazil
Law Degree Maria Coelho da Silva Sobrinha, Maria Fragoso e Delmira Secundina da Costa and Maria Augusta C. Meira Vasconcelos: First females to obtain law degrees in Brazil (1888-1898)
Lawyers Esperança Garcia: First female (an enslaved Black woman) to act as an attorney in Brazil (1770) Myrthes Gomes de Campos (1906): First female lawyer in Brazil (though she practiced the profession of lawyer beginning in 1899) Maria José Saraiva: First female lawyer to present a case before a Jury Court in Brazil Iracema Tavares Dias Nardi and Zuleika Sucupira Kenworthy: First females to hold the position of prosecutor in Brazil and Latin America respectively (Nardi in 1935 in Mina Gerais; Kenworthy in São Paulo in 1948) Joenia Wapichana (1997): First indigenous (Wapishana) female lawyer in Brazil. She was also the first female lawyer to argue a case before the Supreme Court of Brazil. Adriana Pinheiro: First Kanamari (Ticuna) female lawyer in Brazil Vercilene Dias (2016): First Quilombola female to become a lawyer in Brazil and earn a Masters in Law (2022) Patrícia Vanzolini: First female in the history of the Brazilian Bar Association to be elected President (2022) Milady France (2023): First Borari (Munduruku) female lawyer in Brazil
Attorney General and Prosecutor General Grace Mendonça: First female appointed as the Attorney General of Brazil (2017) Raquel Dodge (1986): First female appointed as the Prosecutor General of Brazil (2017) Geovana Scatolino Silva: First female to hold the position of federal corregerator-general of the Public Prosecutor's Office (Brazil) (2018-2019)
Judicial officers Ellen Gracie Northfleet: first woman to be appointed justice of the Supreme Court of Brazil (2000) and Brazil's first female Chief Justice (2006) Auri Moura Costa: First female municipal judge in Brazil (1939). She was also the first female to serve as a Judge of Law (1968). Thereza Grisólia Tang and Ana Maria da Silveira: First female judges in Brazil (1954) Sônia Taciana Sanches Goulart: First female to serve as a Labor judge in Brazil (1960) Mary de Aguiar Silva: First female Black judge appointed in Brazil (1962) Maria Rita Soares de Andrade: First female appointed as a federal judge in Brazil (1967). She was also the first female lawyer in the states of Bahia and Sergipe. Maria Thereza de Andrade Braga Haynes: First female to serve as a Judge of the Justice of the Federal District and Territories (1974) and its President (1988) Lydia Dias Fernandes: First female judge to serve as a President of a Court of Justice in Brazil (Court of Justice of Pará; 1979–1981) Ana Maria Goffi Flaquer Scartezzini, Anna Maria Pimentel, Lúcia Valle Figueiredo Collarile and Diva Prestes Marcondes Malerbi: First females to serve as Judges of the then newly created Federal Regional Court of the Third Region of Brazil (1989). Pimentel was the first female to serve as the court's President (2003). Cnea Cimini Moreira de Oliveira: First female to serve as a Minister of the Supreme Labor Court of Brazil (1990-1999) Eliana Calmon: First female to serve as a Minister of the Superior Court of Justice of Brazil (1999-2013) Sylvia Steiner: First Brazilian (female) to serve as a Judge of the International Criminal Court (2003) Maria Elizabeth Guimarães Teixeira Rocha: First female to serve as a Minister of the Superior Military Court of Brazil (2007) and well as its President (2014) Nancy Andrighi: First female elected as the General Corrector (Electoral General Attorney) of the Superior Electoral Court of Brazil (2011) Carmen Lúcia Antunes Rocha: First female Minister to serve as President of the Superior Electoral Court of Brazil (2012) Carla Santillo: First female to serve as the President of the State Audit Court of Brazil (2015) Laurita Hilário Vaz: First female to serve as the President of the Superior Court of Justice of Brazil (2016) Martha Halfeld Furtado de Mendonca Schmidt: First Brazilian (female) to serve as a Judge of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal (2016) Cristina Peduzzi: First female Minister to serve as the President of the Superior Labor Court of Brazil (2020) Edilene Lôbo: First Black female to serve as a Minister of the Superior Electoral Court of Brazil (2023)
Chile Matilde Throup (1892): First female to earn a law degree (1891) and become a lawyer in Chile Claudina Acuña Montenegro (1923): First female judge in Chile (1925) Adriana Olguin: First female elected as a counselor to the Chilean Bar Association (1955) Mónica Maldonado Croquevielle: First female to serve as the Judicial Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Chile (1960) Fannie Leibovich Guberman: First female to serve as a Minister (Judge) and President of a Court of Appeals in Chile (upon her appointment as a Minister and later the President of the Court of Appeals of Valparaíso in 1971 and 1972 respectively) Luz Bulnes Aldunate: First female to serve as a Judge of the Constitutional Court of Chile (1989) Raquel Camposano Echegaray: First female to join the Supreme Court of Chile (1997) María Antonia Morales Villagrán: First female appointed as a Minister (Judge) of the Supreme Court of Chile (2001) Cecilia Medina: First (Chilean) female to serve as the President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (2008) Olga Feliú: First female to serve as the President of the Chilean Bar Association (2011) Solange Huerta: First female to serve as the Chief Prosecutor of any Prosecutor's Office in Chile (2012) Marisol Peña: First female to serve as the President of the Constitutional Court of Chile (2013) María Teresa Infante Caffi: First Chilean (female) to serve as a Judge of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (2020) María Paz Constanza Jaramillo Loaiza: First female lawyer sworn in by the Court of First Instance and Guarantee of Rapa Nui (2021) [Chile's Easter Island] Andrea Muñoz Sánchez: First female to serve as the surrogate President of the Supreme Court of Chile (2021) Antonela Guevara (2023): First Selkʼnam (female) lawyer in Tierra del Fuego [Argentina and Chile] Joanna Heskia: First Chilean (female) lawyer to become a member of the International Criminal Court (2023)
Colombia Rosa Rojas Castro (1942): First female lawyer and judge (1943) in Colombia Berta Zapata Casas (1947): First female magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia. She is also the first female lawyer to graduate from the University of Antioquia and the first female President of the Superior Court of Medellín. [Antioquia Department, Colombia] Fabiola Aguirre: First female magistrate in Colombia (1952) Teresa Bocanegra: First female prosecutor in Colombia (1958) Rosa Aydée Anzola Linares: First female to serve as a Counselor of the Council of State (Colombia) (1978) Fanny González Franco (1958): First female appointed as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia (1984). During the 1960s, she became the first female to serve as a Minister of the Superior Court of Pereira [Risaralda Department, Colombia]. She was also the first female to study law at the Pontifical Bolivarian University. Eva Marina Pulido de Barón: First female appointed as a magistrate of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia (2002) Clara Inés Vargas Hernández: First female to serve as a Judge of the Constitutional Court of Colombia (2001) and its President (2003) María del Rosario González de Lemus: First female appointed as the President of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia (2010) Viviane Morales Hoyos: First female appointed as the Attorney General of the Nation of Colombia (2011-2012) Ruth Marina Díaz Rueda: First female justice appointed as President of the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia (2013). She was also the first female magistrate of the Court of San Gil, Colombia (1993).