Our History
Queen’s Bench was formed in 1921 by a group of Bay Area women lawyers frustrated by the resistance of male lawyers to their participation in the local bar association, with Christine Turner serving as our first president. In 1974, eight members known as “The Great Eight” established the Queen’s Bench Foundation as our charitable sister organization. A century later, that legacy lives on as one community operating through two related but legally distinct nonprofits, and knowing the difference matters if you’re paying dues, making a donation, or just wondering where your check is going.
Queen’s Bench Bar Association
Queen’s Bench fosters professional and social relationships among women lawyers while promoting equality and opportunity for all women through education, programs, and community outreach.
Our membership organization: the bar association attorneys, judges, and law students join. It runs on member dues and sponsorships. Dues are not deductible as charitable gifts, though a portion may be deductible as an ordinary business expense; consult your tax preparer.
Queen’s Bench Foundation
The Queen’s Bench Foundation performs research and disseminates information in defense of human and civil rights secured by law.
Our charitable sister organization, funding research, education, and scholarships since 1974. Gifts to the Foundation are generally tax-deductible.
Today, Queen’s Bench is a nonprofit voluntary membership organization of attorneys, judges, and law students, and a registered MCLE provider. Our fourteen committees write amicus briefs on major issues affecting women in the law, support judicial and civic appointments, mentor law students and new attorneys, sponsor scholarships at USF School of Law and UC Law San Francisco, and send a delegation to the annual California Conference of Bar Associations. We carry forward a tradition that has hosted speakers of national prominence, from Isabel Allende to U.S. Senators, Congresswomen, and California Supreme Court Justices, and that continues to advance the interests of women in law and society.
Our Colors
The purple, gold, and white you see across Queen’s Bench today were adopted during our centennial anniversary in 2021. The Centennial Committee identified the colors, and our 2023 Merit Award recipients (Alexandra Sepolen, Clarissa Kang, and Hon. Charlotte Walter Woolard (Ret.)) worked together with our 100th president, Alice Anne Shaw, to implement the redesign throughout the bar association. The choice was deliberate: these are the colors of the American suffrage movement, carried by the women whose campaign secured ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, one year before a group of Bay Area women lawyers founded Queen’s Bench.
Purple
“Purple is the color of loyalty, constancy to purpose, unswerving steadfastness to a cause.”
Today, purple is our loyalty to one another and our constancy to the cause: the referrals we send, the mentees we champion, and a century of members steadfastly standing up for equal rights and equal opportunity.
White
“White, the emblem of purity, symbolizes the quality of our purpose.”
Today, white is the quality of our purpose: advancing the interests of women in law and society, as our founders set out to do in 1921, without compromise.
Gold
“[G]old, the color of light and life, is as the torch that guides our purpose, pure and unswerving.”
Today, gold is the torch we carry forward: more women on the bench, in leadership, and in every room where decisions are made, lighting the way for those who come next.
Quotations from The Suffragist (December 6, 1913), as featured in the Queen’s Bench Centennial Celebration program.
What We Do
Queen’s Bench committees carry out our mission: eliminating gender bias in the legal community, supporting women lawyers in leadership, advocating for women’s rights, and encouraging judicial and legislative reform. Highlights include:
Join Our Proud Tradition
Queen’s Bench welcomes all members of the legal profession and law students who share our commitment to equal rights and equal opportunity. Visit our Join or Renew page for the full list of membership benefits and a calculator that shows the value of membership in real dollars.
Queen's Bench Bar Association of the San Francisco Bay Area is a 501(c)(6) organization; the Queen's Bench Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization. Where the historical record is incomplete, this page states only what is verified and invites members and family to help fill the gaps.