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SELMA MOIDEL SMITH Attorney and Composer, She Is Known As a ‘Renaissance Woman’ W HEN A CHILD WAS BORN IN WARREN, OHIO on April 3, 1919, to Mary and Louis Moidel, little would it have been imagined—other than by her parents—that she would become an attorney at law, and beyond that, a member of the legal profession of considerable note.

Such lofty attainment was simply not expected of a girl in that day, when the destiny of one of her gender was presumed to be, if not that of a housewife, that of a nurse, a school teacher, a clerk at a millenary store, or some similar undertaking.

Mary Moidel had wanted to become a lawyer, herself, but lacked the opportunity to fulfill that desire. She was determined that her new-born daughter—as well as her four other children—would go to law school. That daughter, now 100 years old and known as Selma Moidel Smith, received her law degree from USC in 1941, became a member of the State Bar of California on Jan. 5, 1943, at age 23, and served in 1947 and 1948 as president of the Southern California Women Lawyers Association (now known as the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles). She practiced law for more than 40 years.

Not only did she excel in the legal field, Smith is the composer of more than 100 piano and instrumental pieces—some of which the local legal community has heard performed in recent years by the Los Angeles Lawyers Philharmonic, under the baton of attorney Gary S. Greene. Smith, who was able to read music by the age of 5, is listed in the International Encyclopedia of Women Composers.