THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Barbara A. Babcock

July 6, 1938 – April 18, 2020

“If you want to lead, you have to be in the trenches. You can’t tell people to do things if you aren’t willing to do them yourself.”

First female Stanford law professor. First director of the District of Columbia Public Defender Service. One of the first women to be an Assistant Attorney General of the United States. Biographer of California’s first woman lawyer, Clara Foltz. Ruth Bader Ginsburg attributes her appointment to the Supreme Court to the work of Barbara Babcock.

Photo. Fish Raincoats: A Woman Lawyer’s Life, by Barbara Babcock, the life and times of a trailblazing feminist in American law, 2016.