"Every person has the ability to do something the world needs. You do not have to be talented, good looking, or smart. Success means you have found your niche and used your best efforts to try to solve the problems." -Louise Raggio
The woman known as the "Mother of Family Law in Texas" passed away Sunday from natural causes in Dallas, Texas, at the age of 91. To say that Raggio led a full life would be a gross understatement.
Growing up on a cotton farm in Central Texas, Raggio and her mother lived in Austin so Raggio could go to school in town during a time when a girl's education was not considered the best use of time. After graduating as the valedictorian of Austin High School, Louise went on to graduate from the University of Texas in Austin, magna cum laude, with a bachelor's degree and teacher's certificate. Before settling into teaching, Raggio took a fellowship at American University for nine months where she met her heroine, Eleanor Roosevelt, and her husband, Grier Raggio.
Returning to Dallas with her husband, she started taking night law school courses. What started as a want to learn enough law to teach classes, turned into a life-changing decision.
After graduating with a law degree in 1952, Raggio became the first women assistant district attorney of Dallas County. While there, she realized that married women in Texas had fewer rights that single women. During this time, Texas women were required to get their husbands’ signature each time she filed a legal document. Also, married women in Texas had little to no protection for themselves and their children if divorced. Frustrated by this, she became the major support and fighter for the Marital Property Act of 1967. The Marital Property Act of 1967 became the foundation for the current Texas Family Code protecting women in the event of a divorce. She and her husband had opened their private practice by then and had three sons. The law practice is still open today and run by the family.
As chair of the State Bar of Texas' Family Law Section, she spearheaded the Family Code project in 1979, making Texas the first state with a unified family code. For that effort, she received the State Bar of Texas' highest honor and was the first woman elected Director to the Board of Directors of the State Bar of Texas in its more than 100-year history. On the national level, she served in influential leadership positions with the American Bar Association and the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Among her most recent honors include being selected as a 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 Texas SuperLawyer and receiving the Dallas Bar Association's Morris Harrell Lawyer of the Year Award.
Raggio is an inductee in the Texas Women's Hall of Fame and a recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the first recipient of the Dallas Bar Association Outstanding Trial Lawyers Award, the prestigious Margaret Brent Award from the American Bar Association, a listing in The Best Lawyers in America, as well as having Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas found a Lecture Series in her name.
Click here to read the Dallas Morning News article.
We, at The Women's Museum, will dearly miss Louise and thank her and her family for the support they have provided over the years. We promise to continue Louise's legacy by continuing to tell her story to the thousands of girls that participate in our programs, inspiring them to be active and passionate as community leaders.
