| Winnie McLaughlin | |
| Birth Name: | Agnes Winifred McLaughlin |
| Birth Date: | 15 April 1882 |
| Birth Place: | Coös County, New Hampshire, US |
| Death Place: | Berlin, New Hampshire, US |
| Occupation: | Lawyer |
Agnes Winifred McLaughlin (1882–1964) was the first woman admitted to practice law in New Hampshire.[1]
McLaughlin was born in Coös County, New Hampshire, on April 15, 1882,[2] and she was raised in Lancaster, New Hampshire. McLaughlin graduated from Lancaster Academy in 1901, where she distinguished herself in debate and public speaking. As a result, her classmates predicted that she would become a lawyer. She then attended Burdett Business College in Boston for secretarial training. Afterward, she worked for two different attorneys in Coös County, including taking depositions in French and English. Her career moved to the Berlin Municipal Court, where was served as official court stenographer for several years. She then became secretary to a prominent trial lawyer, and through him made connections with nearly all bar members in northern New Hampshire.
McLaughlin petitioned the New Hampshire Supreme Court "that she may be allowed to take an examination with a view to [bar] admission". Her petition states she studied law under two different attorneys from 1911 until 1917 and at the University of Maine Law School.[3] She became the first woman admitted to practice law in New Hampshire on June 30, 1917.[4]
Attorney McLaughlin was on a business trip in New York during World War I when she was offered a position at a law firm on Broadway. She later worked in a new estate planning division at the Equitable Life Insurance Company. She stayed there for 25 years until she retired. She retired to New Hampshire, first to a family farm in Shelburne, and, then, to Gorham, where she resided until her death in a hospital in Berlin, New Hampshire on October 29, 1964.[5]
The New Hampshire Women's Bar Association, in partnership with the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law, has created a scholarship given to a second year law student each year that is named in McLaughlin's honor.[6]