Foltz was born Clarissa Shortridge in Milton, Indiana, to Talitha and Elias Willetts Shortridge. Prior to the Civil War, the family moved to Mount Pleasant, Iowa, where Foltz attended a co-educational school. In December 1864, at age 15, she eloped with a farmer and Civil War veteran named Jeremiah D. Foltz, and they began having children. However, he had difficulty supporting his family. The Foltzes moved several times, first to Portland, Oregon and finally to San Jose, California in 1872. During these times, she contributed articles to the New Northwest and the San JoseMercury. Around 1876, her husband deserted her and their five children. She began studying law in the office of a local judge, in part through the support of local suffragette Sarah Knox-Goodrich. She also supported herself by giving public lectures, starting in 1877, on suffrage.
Foltz wanted to take the bar examination but California law at the time allowed only white males to become members of the bar. Foltz authored a state bill, known as the "Woman Lawyer Bill," which replaced "white male" with "person," and in September 1878 she passed the examination and was the first woman admitted to the California bar, and the first female lawyer on the entire west coast of the United States. Having little formal education, she wished to study at the first law school in California to improve her skills. Alongside her ally Laura de Force Gordon, Foltz applied to Hastings College of the Law but was denied admission because of her sex. Foltz and Gordon sued, but recognized that they faced strong opposition. To advance their cause, Gordon and Foltz wrote an amendment to the California state constitution that read "No person shall, on account of sex, be disqualified from entering upon or pursuing any lawful business, vocation, or profession." Drawing upon both the Woman Lawyer Bill and the soon-to-be-ratified equal opportunity in employment statement in the constitution, Foltz and Gorden were able to argue that if women could serve as lawyers they must certainly be allowed to attend law school at the coeducational University of California. Judge Morrison agreed, and in Foltz v. Hoge ruled that Foltz and Gordon should be admitted to Hastings. The ruling was appealed, and Foltz studied for and passed the California State Supreme Court bar exam in order to argue her case, which she ultimately won. Although Foltz successfully obtained admission for all qualified women to Hastings, the work to win the case left Foltz impoverished and she returned to her legal career instead of pursuing her dream of attending law school.
Later career
Foltz practiced in San Francisco, San Diego, and from 1896 to 1899 in New York, where she attempted to create a career as a corporate attorney.
Political career
Public speaking
In an era when public speaking could be a lucrative career, Foltz spoke for the Republicans during the campaigns of 1880, 1882, and 1884. In 1886 she became a Democrat, and in the winter of that year lectured in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa.
Suffrage
Foltz became a leader in the woman’s voting rights movement. During a career that spanned 56 years, Foltz almost single-handedly pushed a great deal of progressive legislation for women’s rights in the voting and legal fields.
Public defense
At the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, during a "congress" of the Board of Lady Managers, Foltz made her first highly public presentation of her idea of the public defender. Foltz's then-radical concept of providing assistance to indigent criminal defendants is used today throughout the United States.
Other accomplishments
Foltz was notable for many "firsts": first female clerk for the State Assembly's Judiciary Committee ; the first woman appointed to the State Board of Corrections; the first female licensed Notary Public; the first woman named director of a major bank; and, in 1930, the first woman to run for Governor of California, at the age of 81. In 1910, she was appointed to the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, becoming the first female deputy district attorney in the United States. She was active in the suffrage movement, authoring the Women's Vote Amendment for California in 1911. Foltz also raised five children, mostly as a single mother, and encouraged women not to overlook their traditional domestic roles. Foltz also founded and published the San Diego Daily Bee, and New American Woman Magazine, for which she wrote a monthly column until her death.
Family
Foltz's brother, Samuel M. Shortridge, was elected to the United States Senate in 1920 and served two terms. Foltz supported his campaign, though in earlier campaigns she had disagreed with him on key issues like tariffs.
Death
Foltz died at the age of 85 of heart failure at her home in Los Angeles on September 2, 1934. The pallbearers for her funeral included Governor Frank Merriam and several prominent federal and state judges. She was cremated and interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Los Angeles County.
Posthumous recognition
At the insistence of its women students, Hastings College of the Law granted Foltz a posthumous degree of Doctor of Laws in 1991. Additionally, the primary social space inside UC Hastings's McAllister Tower student housing complex was christened the Clara S. Foltz Lounge. In 2002, the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles was renamed the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center.
