On March 16, 2022, WLAM will be hosting a webinar with Michigan Supreme Court Learning Center Director, Rachael Drenovsky, about the first three female Michigan Supreme Court Justices: Mary S. Coleman, Dorothy Comstock Riley, and Patricia J. Boyle. In honor of this upcoming webinar and Women’s History Month, this article will give a brief overview of the fascinating story of the first woman elected to the Michigan Supreme Court: Mary S. Coleman.
Mary S. Coleman was born on June 24, 1914 in Forney, Texas. At the time, her father was a newly graduated law student just starting his law career. Justice Coleman’s mother was also an attorney, which was quite an achievement at the time. Although her mother never attended law school, she had read all of her husband’s law textbooks and was able to become an attorney by passing the Civil Service Examination. She later went on to become chief of the section in the U.S. Department of Justice responsible for enforcement of the beer and wine prohibition provisions.
After living in Texas for a few years, Justice Coleman’s family moved to the Washington, D.C. area. Because of her career, Justice Coleman’s mother was frequently invited to parties at the White House to which Justice Coleman was able to tag along and meet powerful men such as President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Justice Coleman’s fascinating upbringing and trail-blazing mother inspired her to attend law school after graduating from the University of Maryland in 1934. Even though her mother had a successful career, her family did not have much money. At the time, her father was seriously ill with a brain tumor and all of the family’s money was going towards her father’s medical treatment. Accordingly, Justice Coleman attended George Washington University Law School during the evening, while also working a full-time job at the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the day to put herself through law school.
While in law school, Justice Coleman met her husband, Creighton Coleman. Creighton was also a law student who had transferred from the University of Michigan Law School. After graduating law school in 1939, the couple married and had their first child, Leslie, a few years later. In 1945, Creighton, a naval officer, was sent overseas to help set up a military government in Germany at the end of World War II. Justice Coleman soon joined her husband in Berlin. The couple’s second daughter, Carol, was born in Germany. In 1948, as the relationship between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union began to deteriorate, causing the Berlin Crisis, Justice Coleman and her two daughters were evacuated during the Berlin Airlift.
After leaving Germany, the family moved to Marshall, Michigan, Creighton’s hometown. Creighton opened up a private law practice, and Justice Coleman helped him out. When Creighton became a State Senator, Justice Coleman took over the practice. At that time, both of Justice Coleman’s daughters were in school. Her husband was gone during the week for his job, so she arranged her schedule so that she could work while her daughters were in school and be home when they were home. After she put her daughters to bed, she would go back to working and stay up until 2 a.m. and would then wake up at 7 a.m. to get her daughters ready for school. Justice Coleman also volunteered for all of her daughters’ school events, on top of being a full-time practicing attorney.
During this time, Justice Coleman was also actively involved in her community. She started the Marshall Civic Theater and was the president of the Marshall Branch of the American Association of University Women. Justice Coleman was also passionate about the foster care system. She advocated for legislation that improved the foster system and was actively involved in the local juvenile detention home. She helped implement programs in the juvenile home and spent time with the children there, taking them out to lunch, getting their hair done, and doing simple things to make them feel good about themselves.
Justice Coleman’s passion for helping children led her to the next step in her career. In the mid-1950s, she was approached by the Calhoun County Probate and Juvenile Judge for the local circuit court and asked to become the first Juvenile Court Referee for the Calhoun County Circuit Court. This was an entirely new position where she would hear and decide custody, parenting time, child abuse and neglect, and other juvenile-related cases. In 1960, the Calhoun County Probate Judge retired, and Justice Coleman was elected to fill his spot.
In 1972, while serving as the President of the Probate and Juvenile Court Judges’ Association, Justice Coleman’s fellow probate judges recommended that she run for the Michigan Supreme Court. At the time, there was nobody on the Supreme Court who had any experience in the field of Probate and Juvenile Court work, and Justice Coleman’s colleagues thought she would be best suited to the job. She decided to take them up on their suggestion and soon became the first woman to be elected to the Michigan Supreme Court. She was also only the third woman in the nation to sit on a State Supreme Court. Just seven years later, Justice Coleman’s male colleagues on the Supreme Court unanimously elected her to serve as Chief Justice.
During her tenure on the Supreme Court, Justice Coleman was involved in many projects and remained dedicated to judicial reform. She continued her involvement with children and helped write the Juvenile Court Rules. She led a project to make courts state funded, so that all courts would be evenly funded and all Michigan citizens would have equal access to justice. She was also a strong proponent of women’s rights and advocated for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Justice Coleman retired from the Supreme Court in 1982, after ten years of service. Looking back on her career, she was proud of how she handled herself, her accomplishments, and how she carefully considered each case not just for the case itself, but for the impact the case would have in the future. In her own words, she stated:
As I look back, I tackled each problem with a sense of what was, in my opinion, fair and possible, legally speaking, as well as how it would affect the future of the state and the public good.
Mary S. Coleman was an amazing role model who helped advance the interests of women in the legal profession and judiciary. She brought an essential element of compassion, kindness, and thoughtfulness to the Supreme Court that was needed during a time when only men sat on the court. Her passion for helping children and dedication to her own family, all while maintaining a very successful legal career, shows us that women really can do anything if we put our minds to it. For these reasons and many more, WLAM has an award named after Justice Coleman, which is presented each year to a member of the judiciary in recognition of her significant contributions as a judiciary role model for women in the legal profession and in society.
Sources:
- Interview with Justice Mary. S. Coleman (January 21 – 23, 1991) (https://d.lib.msu.edu/mscj/27).
- Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society, Mary Coleman, http://www.micourthistory.org/justices/mary-coleman/.
- Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society, Mary Coleman, http://www.micourthistory.org/women-and-the-law/mary-coleman/.
