THE OKLAHOMA BAR JOURNAL 4 | SEPTEMBER 2024 After being persuaded by her future husband, Lynn Pringle, to move to Oklahoma City, she worked as in-house counsel for the First National Bank downtown. She eventually became general counsel and a lobbyist for the Oklahoma Bankers Association and was instrumental in the passage of several laws, including changing bank branching laws in Oklahoma. In 1988, she and Lynn founded their own firm, Pringle & Pringle PC. Her practice centered around community banks and helping them navigate an ever-changing (and growing) regulatory environment. She and Lynn founded a publishing company that developed policies and procedures for financial institutions that were distributed nationwide. Growing up, I got to take many fun trips because my mother had been hired by a bank to help them work through complex issues. A TRAILBLAZER IS A PERSON WHO “BLAZES a trail” through uncharted territory and shows that it is possible for other people to follow. There have been many women trailblazers in the Oklahoma legal profession. Minerva K. Elliott Lentz was the first woman to pass the Oklahoma Territory Bar (1893). Almost 100 years later, Justice Alma Wilson was the first woman to serve on the Oklahoma Supreme Court (1982). Mona Salyer Lambird was the first woman to serve as president of the Oklahoma Bar Association (1996). Susan Loving was the first and only woman Oklahoma attorney general (1991). Much of this history is well documented in an article co-authored by past OBA President Melissa Delacerda and Patsy Trotter, “Oklahoma’s Women Lawyers” in the Oklahoma Women’s Almanac (2002). This month’s bar journal topic, “Women in Law,” provides the opportunity to highlight women attorneys who have made a difference in the practice of law in Oklahoma. At this time, I would like to use my presidential prerogative to highlight another woman attorney who has made a tremendous difference – my mother, Laura Pringle. Laura grew up in Clinton, Iowa, along the Mississippi River, where her father was an attorney and Presbyterian minister. Scholarship, hard work and faith were very important aspects of her upbringing. Following college, Laura went to law school at the University of Iowa (finishing her work at Emory University). Few women attended law school at that time, and the University of Iowa had just hired its first female law professor in 1973, the year before Laura’s arrival. Despite few female examples and role models, Laura blazed a path for a successful legal career. Laura began at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in Atlanta. From the Son of a Trailblazer From The President By Miles Pringle Miles Pringle is executive vice president and general counsel at The Bankers Bank in Oklahoma City. 405-848-8877 mpringle@tbb.bank (continued on page 97) From left Miles' parents, Lynn and Laura Pringle, President Miles Pringle and his wife, Andrea Pringle
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