TEXAS SUPREME COURT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

opponents in the race. Her slogan was “Harris County is ready for a WOMAN JUDGE. There are 60 judgesin this county—all are men.” Westerfield made the runoff and faced a longtime political figure. Her opponentcampaigned against her by handing out emery boards with his name prominently displayed on both sides. Ashe gave them to voters, he commented, “I hope women do think of my opponent when they get a hangnail.”Westerfield, who was in the first class to enroll at the University of Houston Law Center in 1948, lost a close race,receiving 49.7 percent of the vote. She inspired other women, however, to consider running for a judicial post. 38The year after Westerfield’s trailblazing run for a judicial office, Mary Pearl Hall Williams was appointedto a county court at law bench in Travis County, making her the first female judge in that jurisdiction. Williams,a 1949 graduate of the University of Texas law school, began her career as an assistant attorney general. Afterworking on the Civil Rights Compliance Staff in the Office of Emergency Preparedness in Washington, D.C.,Williams returned to Austin where in 1980 she was elected to the 53rd District Court, a position she held until herretirement in 2000. 39In 1974 three women were on the ballot in Bexar County for judicial seats. Some felt that this was acoordinated effort to put together a women’s ticket, but it seemed to be a coincidence. Carol Haberman, a St.Mary’s law graduate, had served on the San Antonio City Council after practicing law for fifteen years. RoseSpector had been appointed a municipal judge in Olmos Park. Carolyn Spears had been admitted to the bar onlyfive years earlier, acquiring a law license without graduating from law school. After time spent in the districtattorney’s office and in private practice, Spears ran in her first judicial race. 40All three women won election. Suddenly, half the county court benches in San Antonio were held by women.Spector recalled, “Voters were very accepting of the idea of women judges. Lawyers were more skeptica1.” 41 Bythe end of the decade the three women had been elevated to district court benches. Judge Haberman was appointedto the 45th District Court in 1977, becoming Bexar County’s first female district judge, while Judge Spears andJudge Spector were elected in 1980 to other civil district courts. 42In a rigidly segregated society like Texas, an African-American woman had little hope of becoming ajudge. Yet in 1973 Charlye O. Farris was appointed to serve as a special judge in Wichita County in the absence ofthe regular judge. Farris, after serving her brief time on the bench, returned to her law practice in Wichita Falls. 43Six years later Gabrielle Kirk McDonald became the first African-American, male or female, to be seated in theSouthern District of Texas. After graduating at the top of her class at Howard University School of Law, McDonaldworked for the Legal Defense Fund in the South where she did civil rights work in the area of employment law.Moving to Houston in 1969, she practiced law with her husband. Although her appointment to the federal benchwas a landmark one, McDonald insisted that she had never aspired to be a judge. She remained in the position fornine years before stepping down.Judge McDonald then had the extraordinary experience of being elected by the U. N. General Assembly asone of eleven judges for a United Nations Tribunal Court scheduled to conduct the first war trial since Nuremberg.She was the only American and one of two women chosen for the court, receiving more votes than any other38The Houston Lawyer, July-August 1999, 48.39Julia A. Woods, Ashley Craddock and Regan Marie Brown, Austin Lawyers: A Legacy of Leadership and Service (Birmingham, Ala.:Association Pub. Co., 2005), 122.40Brandon, Law and Liberty, 85.41Ibid., 86.42Ibid.43Minority Attorneys File, Bill and Vara Daniel Center for Legal History, State Bar of Texas82