Helen Lucile Lomen (August 21, 1920 – June 21, 1996) was the first woman to serve as a law clerk for a Supreme Court justice.
[2] Her grandfather, Gudbrand J. Lomen, served as mayor of Nome and also as a district judge, inspiring her early interest in a legal career.
[5] Upon graduation, Lomen went to Washington, D.C. to clerk for Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (himself a Whitman alum) for the 1944–1945 term.
Initially, the Dean responded that he had no one to recommend, due to the number of recent male graduates in military service during World War II.
[12] After her time at the Supreme Court, Lomen turned down a position in the U.S. Department of Justice in favor of her home state of Washington as assistant attorney general, where she served for three years.