The Heiress Vs the Establishment: Mrs. Campbell's Campaign for Legal Justice

In 1922, Elizabeth Bethune Campbell, a Toronto-born socialite,
unearthed what she initially thought was an unsigned copy of her
mother's will, designating her as the primary beneficiary of the
estate. The discovery snowballed into a fourteen-year-battle with the
Ontario legal establishment, as Mrs. Campbell attempted to prove that
her uncle, a prominent member of Ontario's legal circle, had
stolen funds from her mother's estate. In 1930, she argued her
case before the Law Lords of the Privy Council in London. A non-lawyer
and Canadian, with no formal education or legal training, Campbell was
the first woman to ever appear before them. She won.

Reprinted here in its entirety, Campbell's self-published
account of her campaign, Where Angels Fear to Tread, is an
eloquent first-person view of intrigue and overlapping spheres of
influence in the early-twentieth-century legal system. Constance
Backhouse and Nancy Backhouse provide extensive commentary and
annotations to lluminate the context and pick up the narrative where
Campbell's book leaves off. Vibrantly written, this is an
enthralling read. Not only a fascinating social and legal history,
it's also a very good story.