Today we would like to tell you about the first female legal professional and lawyer in Bulgaria – Vera Zlatareva.
She graduated in law from Sofia University in 1929 and thus became the first female lawyer, defending her doctoral thesis in law in 1931.
Although women were already admitted to law school in the 1902/03 academic year, they were not allowed to work in the bar or the courts until 1944. This access was a fact in the late 1920s in almost all Balkan countries. Bulgaria and Albania remain the only exceptions.
Zlatareva began her career as a legal assistant at the Ministry of Agriculture and State Property. Later, she became also the Assistant Head of the Office for Combating Social Evils at the Police Directorate.
Zlatareva, along with other prominent female lawyers, was fighting for many years for the right to practice their profession.
Just 15 years after her graduation, Vera Zlatareva became the first woman to obtain the capacity of a lawyer.
She was also one of the first 16 women elected as members of parliament, and the first woman to speak from the podium of the National Assembly in December 1945.