Clara Gonzalez

Clara Gonzalez, who lived from September 11, 1898, to February 10, 1990, was a Panamanian lawyer and judge who became the first Panamanian woman to earn a Bachelor of Law degree, in 1922, the same year she founded the National Feminist Party. Legal reform allowed her to begin practicing law in 1925, and she went on to earn a doctorate in law from New York University between 1927 and 1929 and to lead research at the Inter-American Commission on Women from 1928 to 1930. After Panamanian women won the right to vote in 1945 she entered electoral politics, and in 1951 she became Panama first female juvenile court judge, helping draft the country juvenile code before retiring from judicial work in 1964; Panama School of Public Prosecutors and an annual legal award for work in women or human rights now bear her name.