<p align="left">After a career in music was cut short by an injury, Allen studied politics and then law. She established a law practice in Ohio, working for Legal Aid and for woman suffrage. She served as an assistant prosecutor in Cuyahoga Country before her election as a judge, serving as the first female elected as a judge of the court of common pleas (1920) and the first female elected to the Ohio Supreme Court (1922). In that position, she was the first woman in the world to sit on a court of last resort.

In 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her to the US Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, the first appointment of a woman to any federal bench of general jurisdiction. She served on that court until she retired in October 1959, and was chief judge of that court in the later years of her service. Among other cases she heard was the testing of the constitutionality of the Tennessee Valley Authority. She was active in human rights work through the International Bar Association. She received many awards and honorary degrees and published two books on law and another on her life, To Do Justly.</p>
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