Ellice Aylmer Eadie ( Hearn; 30 June 1912 – 31 March 2001) was an Irish-born English barrister and civil servant. She was called to the bar in 1937 and joined the Board of Trade's solicitor department nine years later. Eadie went to the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel in 1949, attaining promotion to become the first female under-secretary rank lawyer in the Civil Service as Deputy Counsel. She drafted laws and rules for the Supreme Court and was the first woman Standing Counsel to the General Synod of the Church of England. Biography Early life Eadie was born Ellice Aylmer Hearn at Edmonton, St Patrick's Hill, Cork on 30 June 1912, to Robert Hearn, the Church of Ireland clergymen and future Bishop of Cork, and the skin specialist Mary Ellice Hearn (née Cummins). One of her aunts was Ireland's first qualified professional engineer and the family were versed in field hockey and rugby. Eadie was taught at Cheltenham Ladies' College, and began reading law at St Hugh's College, Oxford in 1931. She was taught by the university's first female law professor Agnes Headlam-Morley, and was awarded the Winter Williams law scholarship in the 1933 Michaelmas term. In 1934, Eadie earned her first class Bachelor of Arts degree and a first class Bachelor of Civil Law degree in 1935. She took the first section of the bar examination in December 1935, earning a first in constitutional law, elements of contract law and tort law and legal history. Eadie also was second in criminal law and procedure and put into the first class (second in Order of Merit) of the final bar examinations, earning the three-year Lord Justice Holker senior scholarship. Career She was called to the bar by Gray's Inn on 26 January 1937 and was given the three-year Arden Scholarship. Eadie gave tuition to women law students at Oxford and was a pupil of Lincoln's Inn's Milner Holland and Richard Lee Metcalfe; she remained with Holland as his "devil" after completing her pupilage. In October 1939, Eadie joined the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury, becoming assistant to Harold Kent, the future Treasury Solicitor. She remained in the position for two years before joining the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) in 1941. Eadie left the WAAF as a flight officer in 1946 and joined the Board of Trade's solicitor's department that same year. In 1949, she returned to