From the Son of a Trailblazer

By Miles Pringle

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. 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.

Laura has also contributed to the legal community. She was an adjunct professor who taught banking law at both the OU College of Law and the OCU School of Law. She helped found and chaired the OBA Financial Law Section and then helped merge it with the Commercial Law Section. She has published numerous articles in many periodicals. Her career has taken her from courtrooms (having argued before the Oklahoma Supreme Court) to classrooms to boardrooms to an invitation to the White House.

Laura’s career is one that any child would be proud of. I had the good fortune to practice with both of my parents for nine years before becoming general counsel for The Bankers Bank. To say she has influenced my legal career is an understatement.

We attorneys are more than our resumes, and I am very grateful for Laura’s nonprofessional life. As a son, she has given me (and my sister and all her grandchildren) unwavering love and support. She has picked me up at my weakest moments. She has shown me that listening and speaking softly is often more powerful and persuasive than being loud and boisterous. While she has run a  successful business, she has always given back to the causes she believes in and served on several nonprofit boards.

Strength is not a masculine quality. Laura showed strength to persevere and thrive in the male-dominated legal and banking fields. She showed strength to fight off cancer while barely missing a day of work. She showed strength to stand up against things she believed to be wrong.

Thank you to all the women in law. You make a difference. And a special thank you to my mother.

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Miles Pringle is executive vice president and general counsel at The Bankers Bank in Oklahoma City.
405-848-8877
mpringle@tbb.bank

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Originally published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal – OBJ 95 Vol 7 (September 2024).

Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff.