Antoinette Dakin Leach information

Antoinette Dakin Leach (April 3, 1859 – June 11, 1922) was an American lawyer and a women's rights pioneer who was an active organizer on behalf of women's suffrage in Indiana. When the Greene-Sullivan Circuit Court denied Leach's petition for admission to the bar in 1893, her successful appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court, In re Petition of Leach, broke the gender barrier for admission to the bar in Indiana, securing the right for women to practice law in the state. The landmark decision, a progressive one for the time, also set a precedent that was used in 1897 as a test case to give Indiana women the right to vote, although the voting rights challenge in Gougar v Timberlake was unsuccessful. Leach was also an active politician and a supporter of women's suffrage who favored a constitutional amendment to secure women's right to vote.

The Wooster, Ohio, native and married mother of two was trained as a lawyer and stenographer. She began her legal career as court reporter for the Greene-Sullivan Circuit Court in Sullivan, Indiana. After Leach was admitted to the bar in 1883, she maintained a general law practice in Sullivan and in Indianapolis, Indiana, from 1911 until her retirement in 1917. Leach also held several leadership roles in local and state politics, including membership in the Republican Party and serving as a delegate to the party's state convention in 1896, before joining the Progressive Party when it endorsed equal suffrage. Leach served for three years as Sullivan County chair of Progressive Party and for twelve years as president of the Sullivan County Bar Association. She was admitted to Indiana State Bar Association in 1909. Leach served as a State Organizer for the National American Suffrage Association and ran an active but unsuccessful campaign for state representative in 1910. In addition, she founded the Woman Citizen, a monthly publication of Indiana's Equal Suffrage Association, in 1911 and served as its editor for two years. Two plaques in the rotunda of the Sullivan County Courthouse commemorate Leach's life and her successful effort to secure women the right to practice law in Indiana.