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Viola Beatrice Kneeland ’30 LL.M.
Clearly a woman ahead of her time, Viola Beatrice Kneeland established her own law firm in Boston with a partner in 1933 and continued to practice until she was nearly 70. She was among the first women admitted to Columbia Law School and was the first to receive an LL.M. degree. Born in Boston, she graduated from Wellesley College in 1920 and went on to complete an M.A. in literature at Columbia in 1923. After working briefly as a Greek tutor, she enrolled at Boston University Law School, where she earned her LL.B. cum laude in 1927. She entered Columbia Law School in 1929, finishing her LL.M. degree in just a year.
Ms. Kneeland worked for Blodgett, Jones, Burnham & Bingham in Boston before establishing her own firm, Kneeland & Splane. In her more than 30 years of practice on Federal Street, she specialized in admiralty and marine insurance law, coffering a territory that spanned from Eastport, Me., to Brownsville, Tex. It was quite an accomplishment, considering admiralty law was largely the bailiwick of male practitioners. Although she lived most of her adult life on Boston’s Beacon Street, Ms. Kneeland was a cosmopolitan woman who traveled the world. In 1952, she wrote to the Wellesley alumnae magazine: "Our office has grown by leaps and bounds. However, in spite of the press of business or perhaps because of it, I find time about every six months to go abroad…. The last trip was a cruise on the Caronia around South America – before that it was the Caronia to the North Cape and Norway and Sweden - and before that a flying trip to Portugal, Spain, the Riviera, and Paris."
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1899 - 1981 (82 years)
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