February 1929 – “I haven’t any illusions about the law,” Irma Von Nunes informed a reporter. “I know it is a plugging profession, but it happens to be the sort of plugging I don’t mind.”
This statement came from a 19-year old woman who’d just passed the Georgia Bar exam with flying colors. But what made her achievement even more remarkable was the fact that Irma had never attended a day of law school in her life.
Irma’s father, Tillou Von Nunes, known as one of Atlanta’s best-known lawyers, had allowed his only daughter to accompany him to court. Fascinated by the law, once she got her high school diploma, Irma showed up at her father’s office one morning, pulled out a volume of Blackstone, unwrapped a chocolate and began to read.
It took her two years and countless boxes of chocolates to wade through his law library. When her reading was finished, Irma announced she planned to take the bar examination.
After her admittance to practice law, Irma continued to be considered something of a protégé of the bar. Her first case traveled all the way to the State Supreme Court of Georgia. She won, scoring a double bonus since it made the first time a woman appeared before Georgia’s highest tribunal.
World War II profoundly changed Irma’s course in life. She left Georgia far behind, enlisting in the Army in 1942 and then being transferred overseas. She reached the rank of Captain in the WACs. When the war came to a close, Irma became the first woman prosecutor to take part in the trials for war crimes held in Dachau, Germany.
