"Trailblazer" Lady Ruth Morris of Kenwood passes away

Described as 'an outstanding role model to the Jewish community', Lady Morris was one of the first women to be made a senior partner at a city law firm

A trailblazing lawyer who became one of the first female senior partners at a major London law firm has passed away at the age of 93, surrounded by her family.

Lady Ruth Morris of Kenwood, the daughter of former MP Barnett Janner, was well known for her charity work, including her roles as a trustee of the Jewish Youth Fund and a patron of the Jewish AIDS trust. She also served as President of the Habonim Dror youth group; she received a CBE in 2014 for her services to the community.

After having been evacuated to Canada during the war by her parents, who feared that the Nazis were going to invade Britain, she subsequently returned to the UK, entering the legal profession and joining her family’s law firm, which subsequently merged with another firm. In an interview a decade ago, she described being made a senior partner, “but they wouldn’t call me Senior Partner, they would only call me Chairman of Partners, because I was a woman.”

Lady Morris of Kenwood (an area of Sheffield) would become one of the longest continually practising members of the Law Society. She went on to work for Paisner & Co (later Berwin Leighton Paisner), and then in her 80s for Manuel Swaden, a law firm based in Hampstead.

A member of Mosaic Liberal Synagogue, Lady Morris featured on Jewish News’ “120 over 80” list in 2021, described as “an outstanding role model to the Jewish community”. At that point, at the age of 87, her biography noted that she was “still volunteering at the Jewish Museum, All Saints Primary School and the Royal Free Hospital.”