Posted by Eunice Buhler received the Alta May Hulett Award at the Alliance For Women’s Annual Awards program. Named for Illinois’ first woman lawyer, the award recognizes a woman who demonstrates a sustained, active commitment to advancing women and has been qualified to practice law for fifteen years or less. Below are the remarks she shared upon receiving this award.
I am deeply honored to receive this award, and especially honored to receive an award that bears the name of the incredible Alta May Hulett.
When I first learned about Alta’s life, I had two reactions.
The first was profound admiration.
The second was: I really should have accomplished more by nineteen.
As some of you may know, Alta May Hulett was nineteen years old when she became the first woman admitted to the Illinois bar.
But that fact, remarkable as it is, does not quite capture what she did.
When Alta first sought admission to the bar, she passed the bar exam but was denied admission simply on the basis of her gender.
But it’s not what happens to us that defines who we are, it’s how we respond. Do we respond with resilience or resignation?
Alta chose resilience.
She didn’t accept that no. At eighteen she marched down to Springfield and advocated for legislation that wouldn’t allow those denials to happen any longer. And she won.
She pioneered a bill, in 1872, that declared, “ No person shall be precluded or debarred from any occupation, profession or employment (except military) on account of sex.”
That’s any occupation or profession – not just law.
After this “small detour” Alta then returned to the bar exam, earned the highest score among the candidates, and was — finally — admitted to practice.
Alta’s story could have been a story about what she was prevented from doing. Instead, it’s a story about what she DID. Her story reminds us that with enough determination, discipline, and courage, a person can create an opportunity that did not exist before and can change the trajectory of history.
And she did all of that while still in her teens.
Her life was tragically short. She died before her twenty-third birthday. Yet in those few years, she built a legal practice, became known as a serious advocate, and helped enlarge what women could aspire to become.
And I think the best way to honor a legacy like that is not simply to admire it, but to remember it, embrace it and continue it.
Most of us will not be called upon to rewrite Illinois law at eighteen. Thankfully.
But all of us have opportunities to make more possible for someone else.
We decide whom to trust with a difficult assignment. Whom to recommend. Whom to introduce. Whose ambition to encourage. Whose potential to see before it is obvious to everyone else.
Those choices may seem small. Over the course of a career, they are not.
I certainly have not traveled my own road alone.
Whatever this award recognizes in me reflects the extraordinary women—and men—who have invested in me, challenged me, opened doors for me, trusted me with opportunities before I was entirely sure I was ready for them, and taught me what leadership can look like.
It’s because of them that I feel empowered to respond with resilience.
I am especially grateful to the Chicago Bar Association and the Alliance for Women for preserving Alta’s incredible story.
There are many ways by which we measure our success as lawyers, but tonight I ask each of you to measure your success in the way Alta would: Whether more became possible because you were here.
Thank you for this tremendous honor. I will do my very best to be worthy of it.
Eunice Buhler is General Counsel at G2