Mabel Walker Willebrandt
Mabel Walker Willebrandt (May 23, 1889 – April 6, 1963), popularly known to her contemporaries as the First Lady of Law, was an American lawyer who served as the United States Assistant Attorney General from 1921 to 1929, handling cases concerning violations of the Volstead Act, federal taxation, and the Bureau of Federal Prisons during the Prohibition era. For enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, the prohibition against the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, she also earned herself a nickname “Prohibition Portia”.[1]
For the American Olympic sprinter, see Mabel Walker (athlete). For the Bahamian suffragist, see Mabel Walker (suffragist).
Mabel Willebrandt
Roger Wilkins (1966)
April 6, 1963 (aged 73)
Riverside, California, U.S.
Arthur Willebrandt (1910–1920)
1 (adopted)
Early life and career[edit]
Willebrandt was born Mabel Elizabeth Walker in Woodsdale, Kansas, on May 23, 1889. Her father, David W. Walker, edited a local newspaper. In February 1910, she married Arthur Willebrandt, the principal of the school where she was teaching, and they moved to Phoenix, where he recuperated from tuberculosis while she finished college and supported them on a teacher's salary.[2] She graduated from Tempe Normal School, later Arizona State University, in 1911.
In 1912, the Willebrandts moved to Los Angeles, where she taught elementary school and attended night classes at the law school of the University of Southern California. She received her law degree from the University of Southern California in 1916 and an LL.M. a year later.[3] During her time at USC, she was a member of Phi Delta Delta legal sorority. The Willebrandts separated in 1916 and divorced in 1924.[2]
During her last semester of law school, Willebrandt began doing pro bono work in the police courts while still teaching full-time. Ultimately, she argued two thousand cases as the city's first female public defender for women in Los Angeles, handling mostly cases of prostitution. She acted as counsel on more than 2,000 cases.[4] Her efforts led courts to permit the testimony of both men and women. She also campaigned successfully for the enactment of a revised community property statute at the state level.[5] After graduating, she opened a practice in downtown Los Angeles with Fred Horowitz, who later built the Chateau Marmont.
During World War I, Willebrandt served as head of the Legal Advisory Board for conscription cases in Los Angeles. In 1921, at age 32, her law school professor and mentor Frank Doherty, as well as Senator Hiram Johnson and all the judges in southern California, recommended her for the post of Assistant Attorney General in the Warren G. Harding administration.[2]
Later years[edit]
Willebrandt expected to be rewarded for her political loyalty by being appointed U.S. attorney general. But when Hoover passed her over, Willebrandt resigned her post in 1929. She returned to private practice and had offices in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.[5] She also represented California based Fruit Industries who made Vine-Glo, a grape concentrate product that she had previously ruled legal as assistant attorney general despite it carrying a warning telling people how to make wine from it. This conflict of interest provoked the government to behave more aggressively towards concentrate products during Prohibition.[10]
In 1950, Willebrandt served as counsel to the Screen Directors Guild during a labor hearing.[5] She pioneered the fields of aviation and radio law and became an expert in federal regulations and taxes. Willebrandt represented major industries, including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the Screen Directors Guild of America, Aviation Corp. of America, and California Fruit Industries, a major producer of table wine. She defended Louis B. Mayer before the IRS and represented celebrities such as Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, and Jeanette MacDonald.[11]
Willebrandt was the first woman to chair a committee of the ABA, heading its committee on aeronautical law.[5] She also got her pilot's license and promoted air travel with Amelia Earhart, a fellow member of the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce.[11] She also held several honorary doctorates.[5]
After promoting anti-Catholic beliefs, particularly against Democratic candidate Al Smith, who was Catholic, in the 1928 U.S. presidential election, Willebrandt later in life became a Catholic.[12]
Willebrandt died of lung cancer in Riverside, California, on April 6, 1963.[5] She was survived by her adopted daughter, Dorothy Rae.[3] Her lifelong friend, Judge John J. Sirica, who would later preside over the Watergate case, said of her, "If Mabel had worn trousers, she could have been president."[11]