Dolores S. Atencio: The First Latina Attorneys in America
Former attorney Dolores S. Atencio and federal judge Christine Arguello discuss a seven-year research project uncovering the first Latina lawyers in U.S. history.
Why we picked this
A seven-year archival project tracing Latina attorneys from 1880 to 1980 — this is recovered history, and the conversation between Atencio and Judge Arguello gives it personal weight.
In 1880, the first Latina women began entering the legal profession in America. For nearly a century their names went largely unrecorded. Dolores S. Atencio spent seven years changing that, identifying and documenting the pioneering Latina attorneys who shaped the law before anyone thought to write them into its history.
Her book, The Illustrious Impact of Luminarias on the Law, covers the period from 1880 to 1980 and draws on deep archival research. Atencio is herself a former practicing attorney and visiting scholar who earned her law degree from the University of Denver in 1980 — the year her own story intersects with the book’s timeline. She later served as the second woman president of the Hispanic National Bar Association and received the ABA’s Margaret Brent Outstanding Women Attorneys Award in 2024.
In conversation with her is the Honorable Christine Arguello, the first Hispanic U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Colorado, and the first Latina from Colorado admitted to Harvard Law School. The evening is free and open to the public — a rare combination of rigorous scholarship and living history, both on the same stage.