The first women lawyers in America, like many of their twentieth-century counterparts, had to reconcile the traditional roles assigned to women with their roles as lawyers. In 1886, a group of women students and recent alumnae of the University of Michigan Law School founded the Equity Club, a correspondence club for women lawyers and law students across the country who were trying to overcome geographic isolation. The Equity Club became the first organization in the United States to forge professional links between women lawyers, and its founding marks the origins of a collective identity among these new professionals. The letters reprinted in Women Lawyers and the Origins of Professional Identity in America reveal the challenges the first women lawyers faced and reflect the diverse opinions they held on the common issues confronting them. Some contended that women should be lawyers on the same terms as men, while others argued that they could bring something special to the profession—like morality, purity, ethics, and humanity—in contrast to the purely business and commercial qualities of law as practiced by men. The discovery and publication of these letters fill a void in the documentary history of the legal profession and the history of women in America. The introductory essay and the biographical information provided about the lives of the members of the Equity Club help to place the letters in the larger contexts of those histories. Women Lawyers and the Origins of Professional Identity in America will prove enlightening to practicing lawyers, who will find that even a hundred years later, many of the letters have remarkable relevance. Scholars and students in women's history, American studies, sociology, and legal history will also find it a valuable resource.