[1][6] More than 150 miles away from their hometown, Forbus and Sample ran the household on the $25 (equivalent to $848 in 2023) monthly check sent by their parents, even after their four younger siblings joined them in the two-room house.

[1][7][8] To fund her education, Forbus worked again as a stenographer, as a secretary for the highway engineering department and bought a $1,000 (equivalent to $20,257 in 2023) life insurance policy that she borrowed against and repaid each year.

[7][8] After graduation, she was told by the law school dean, "Goodbye, Lady Willie, someday you'll make a good stenographer for some lawyer".

[1][13] Forbus believed her legal career would be best placed if she went west and, using her law school's directory, she sent letters to lawyers in Cheyenne, Denver, San Francisco and Seattle asking for a job.

Based on a response from a Seattle-based criminal lawyer, Walter Fulton, Forbus moved to Washington in 1918, immediately after graduation.

[1][7] Forbus spent a year clerking for the local firm of Donworth & Todd (now Perkins Coie),[7][14] and worked as a legal adviser for the draft board and secretary for the Military Training Camps Association.

[7][8] Forbus opened her own legal practice in September of that year in the Boston Block until it was torn down for the Seattle National Bank sixteen months later, when she moved to the Leary Building.

[1][15] Forbus's practice was the first woman-owned law firm in Seattle and she remained the only female sole practitioner for a decade, until 1929.

[4][17] In 1922, Forbus began to receive public attention due to her handling of the murder of the police officer Charles O. Legate.

He was found dead in his car in his garage on March 17 and the gunshot wound to his head led the coroner's jury to rule the death a suicide.

[1] Despite her defeats for public office, Forbus continued to advocate for social programs and she became well known in Seattle and surrounding towns.

By the end of the decade, she was approached by the King County Democratic Central Committee to run for the Washington State Senate.

[13] She passed legislation to eliminate the labelling of children born out-of-wedlock as illegitimate on their birth certificates and supported policies to improve worker's compensation, equal pay, a gradual income tax, and unemployment insurance.

[4][19] Considered a progressive Democrat, a friend described Forbus's politics as "an old-fashioned liberal populist with a marvelous commitment to social justice, but without cynicism.

Forbus retained her maiden name and the couple's two daughters, Alvara and Dale, were given hyphenated surnames, which was unusual for the time.

Forbus gave speeches on topics including "Educational Development in Colonial America", "Garden Planning" and "An International Bill of Rights."