
Barbara Babcock, who passed away in April 2020, was Stanford Law School’s first female professor, where she taught civil and criminal procedure for decades. Prior to her teaching career, she served as the first Public Defender in Washington, D.C. (having helped to draft the statute establishing the Public Defender Service). During the Carter Administration, she headed the Civil Division as Assistant Attorney General. Babcock’s oral history, originally taken as part of the Women Trailblazers Project of the ABA, is summarized here by Caroline D. Krass, a member of the Board of Directors of the Historical Society.