Elsbeth Levy Bothe (October 17, 1927 – February 27, 2013) was an

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attorney and judge. Bothe was one of the first women to begin law school at the

University of Maryland School of Law The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law (formerly University of Maryland School of Law) is the law school of the University of Maryland, Baltimore and is located in Baltimore City, Maryland, U.S. Its location places Maryland ...

Biography

She was born into a large

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family, the Levys, in

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and was the great-granddaughter of Isaac Hamburger, founder of Hamburger and Sons Clothiers. She attended the Park School in Baltimore and went to college at the

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, where she graduated with a

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degree. She was one of the first women to begin law school at the

, graduated from it in 1952 and was admitted to the Maryland Bar the same year. That year she also met her husband, Bert Bothe, a lawyer in the labor movement. She worked on civil rights in Mississippi and was active with the

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and the

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upon her return to Baltimore. She practiced law as a

defense attorney A criminal defense lawyer is a lawyer (mostly barristers) specializing in the defense of individuals and companies charged with criminal activity. Some criminal defense lawyers are privately retained, while others are employed by the various ...

. She was elected Delegate of the Constitutional Convention of Maryland in 1967, Assistant Public Defender of Maryland 1972–78, President of the

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of Maryland (resigned in 1978), and Associate Judge of the Baltimore City Circuit Court 1978–1996. Bothe was a member of the

Institute for Policy Studies The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) is an American progressive think tank started in 1963 that is based in Washington, D.C. It was directed by John Cavanagh from 1998 to 2021. In 2021 Tope Folarin was announced as new Executive Director. ...

Board of Trustees. Bothe was the first female judge in Baltimore to handle serious criminal cases such as murders and rapes. Bothe understood the law and the constitutional rights of the defendants that she saw, but was prepared to pass sentences longer than the statutory minimum. Elsbeth Bothe died on February 27, 2013.

References

Sources

*''A Judge with a Taste for Macabre: Bothe a character on and off bench.'' The Baltimore Sun, 7 May 1995. *Heller, Janet. ''Sitting in Stern Judgement.'' Warfield's. Vol. 3, no.11 (Jan., 1989), p. 102–104.

External links

Jewish Women's Archive, story on Elsbeth Levy BotheInternet Archive, audio recording and transcript of 2001 Oral History by Elsbeth Levy BotheHonorable Joyce Hens Greens, interview by Ms. Porter, September 16 1999
(October 29, 2007).

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bothe, Elsbeth Levy 1927 births 2013 deaths American people of German-Jewish descent Lawyers from Baltimore University of Chicago alumni University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law alumni 20th-century American women lawyers 20th-century American judges 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American women judges 21st-century American women Public defenders