Heilbron, Dame Rose (1914-2005), a British lawyer, was the first woman to lead the defense in a murder trial, the first woman to plead in the House of Lords, and the first woman to be appointed a recorder. A recorder is a part-time judge of the crown court. In 1974, she became the second woman to be appointed a judge of the High Court.
Heilbron was born in Liverpool on Aug. 19, 1914. She studied at Belvedere School and Liverpool University. She became a barrister, a lawyer authorized to argue cases in the United Kingdom’s higher courts, in 1939 and became a king’s counsel (senior barrister) in 1949. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or DBE, in 1974. Heilbron died on Dec. 8, 2005.
