Teo Soon Kim alsoTeow Soon Kim andLo-Teo Soon Kim (23 June 1904 – 23 April 1978)[1] was a barrister inSingapore,Hong Kong and also inEngland. She was the first woman admitted to theStraits Settlement bar, and the first woman barrister in Hong Kong. She also became the third Malayan Chinese woman to become a barrister in England.[2]
Teo's father,Teo Eng Hock, was arubber baron fromTeochew.[1] Teo was encouraged by her father to get an education and attended theMethodist Girls' School.[2] She later taught at the school for two years, but what she really wanted to do was become a lawyer.[2] Part of her motivation for becoming a lawyer was because few women in Asia had done so and none in Singapore had been admitted to the bar.[3][4] She went to theUniversity of London to study law and lived inFinchley.[1] She entered theInner Temple in London in May 1924 where she studied with H. H. L. Bellot.[1] In 1927, became the third Malayan Chinese woman to be admitted to thebar of England and Wales.[2]
Teo returned to Singapore and married Lo Long Chi in December 1928.[2][5] In 1929, Teo was admitted to the Singapore bar.[6] She practiced for a few years in Singapore after spending two years in China.[2] In Singapore, she took on civil and criminal cases and argued in front of theSupreme Court in 1932.[1] She was first woman to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court and drew a crowd in the public gallery.[1][7] In 1932, she moved to Hong Kong and became the first woman admitted to the bar there in August 1932.[2]
In the early 1920s, Teo converted toChristianity.[1] She was inducted into theSingapore Women's Hall of Fame in 2014.[2]
