Lee Tai-young

Lee Tai-young, who lived from August 10, 1914, to December 16, 1998, was a South Korean lawyer known as Korea's first female lawyer. Born in Pyongan Province in what is now North Korea, she became the first woman admitted to Seoul National University in 1946, earned her law degree in 1949, and in 1952 became the first woman to pass Korea's National Judicial Examination. In 1957 she opened the Women's Legal Counseling Center to serve indigent women, a practice that grew into the Korea Legal Aid Center for Family Relations and served thousands of clients a year, and she authored fifteen books on women's legal issues. Her opposition to the government of President Park Chung Hee, including her participation in the 1976 Myongdong Declaration, led to her arrest in 1977 and a three-year suspended sentence, loss of civil liberties, and a ten-year disbarment.