law would lead to their right to suffrage (a right that was not granted until 1920), and a disturbance of the current social order. The court eventually unanimously denied her petition, claiming that existing law set no precedent for allowing women to practice in the courts, and that the legislature's failure to expressly provide that women could become members of the bar was further support of that opinion. Unfazed, Robinson took her fight to the legislature. She drafted a bill that would authorize women to take the bar exam and practice law in the court and garnered support. Robinson argued that the word "citizen" in the Massachusetts Bar statute was a gender neutral term and that Massachusetts should follow the direction of fourteen other states that had admitted women to the bar. She argued that "as a citizen, under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, her privileges and immunities could not be abridged, and thus she was entitled to take the bar examination just like her male colleagues". The Massachusetts legislature responded to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts ruling and passed the bill just one year after its ruling, announcing: "The best administration of justice may be most safely secured by allowing the representation of all classes of the people in courts of justice." The legislature also allowed women to be appointed as "special commissioners," which was a way to allow women to perform notary duties without running afoul of Massachusetts's constitutional ban at the time. Following the passage of the bill, Robinson took and passed the bar exam in 1882 and became the first woman to be admitted to the bar and practice in the courts of Massachusetts. Robinson also helped to draft and pass a Massachusetts bill allowing women to take depositions and administer oaths. Legal career Robinson went on to have her own private legal practice, and moved to Seattle, Washington, in 1884 where society was much more receptive to women in the law. The judge for the Washington Territory, Roger Sherman Greene, appointed her as a criminal defense attorney. Robinson was the first woman in Washington to argue a case to a jury and to argue in front of a jury consisting of both men and women. She wrote a few major publications, including a book on divorce law titled The Law of Husband and Wife. She took various surveys about women in the law, compiling