LEGAL LADIES
Quiet Rebels: A History of Ontario Women Lawyers
by Mary Jane Mossman
Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 540 pages, $95
It’s hard to say which is the more compelling aspect of Quiet Rebels: the stories of the first 187 women to be called to the bar in Ontario or the astonishing level of research involved in compiling them. Mary Jane Mossman, a professor emeritus at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, has researched her subjects with meticulousness and written about them with care. Detailed footnotes often take up one-third of a page, and the selected bibliography runs to more than 30 pages.