Natividad Almeda-Lopez

Natividad Almeda-Lopez, who lived from September 8, 1892, to January 22, 1977, was a Filipino lawyer and judge regarded as the first female lawyer in the Philippines. She was the only woman in her class at the Escuela de Derecho de Manila, completed her law studies in 1913, and passed the bar examination in 1914, joining the Roll of Attorneys in 1915; she is also credited as the first woman to defend a female client in a Philippine court. She joined the Bureau of Justice in 1919 and rose to assistant attorney at the Office of the Attorney General, earned a master's degree in law in 1937 and a doctorate in civil law from the University of Santo Tomas in 1938, and in 1934 received a permanent appointment as a city judge of Manila's municipal court, becoming the country's first female judge. In 1956 she was appointed presiding judge of the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, and she served on the Court of Appeals from 1961 until her retirement in 1962.