Charlotte Hunter Arley

Charlotte Hunter Arley was a pioneering Nevada attorney whose career spanned more than half a century. Born April 2, 1912, in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Ukrainian Jewish immigrant parents, she entered Northeastern University School of Law in Boston at the age of sixteen and graduated in 1932. Too young to sit for the bar upon graduation, she volunteered in a legal clinic and worked additional jobs until she was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1935. She was later admitted to the State Bar of Nevada in 1947, one of only three women to pass the Nevada bar examination that year.

After settling in Reno, Arley built a practice representing plaintiffs in divorce, personal injury, and criminal matters, taking the view that plaintiffs were the people who most needed her help. She served as the sole woman lawyer in the legal department of the Federal Land Bank, argued several cases successfully before the Nevada Supreme Court, and in 1949 represented Reno at the International Federation of Women Lawyers in Rome, Italy. She is best remembered for the 1952 'Petticoat Trial' in Washoe County - the first local trial in which both opposing attorneys were women - in which she prevailed and won her client an award of $3,000.

Known for her dedication to clients over financial gain, Arley often practiced without formal fee agreements and was remembered for personally paying filing fees for clients who could not afford them. She continued to practice law into her eighties. In 1989 she became the first attorney honored as an outstanding woman lawyer of Northern Nevada. She died March 7, 2006, in Reno at the age of 93, and in 2007 a commemorative plaque was installed in her memory at the historic Washoe County Courthouse.