Elisabeth Freivogel was born in 1953 in the Upper Basel region and grew up in a working-class family. As the first academic in her family, she defied expectations and reservations to pursue her path to grammar school and later to the University of Basel. From an early age, she learned not to be intimidated by social structures but to follow her own path. Her grandfather, who served in the village as a guardian ad litem and justice of the peace, sparked her interest in law.
In the 1970s, she studied law in Basel at a time when there were no female professors or assistants, and while the revision of marriage law was still ongoing. At the same time, she became active in the emerging women’s movement, helped establish women’s counseling centers, and advocated for reproductive rights as well as the creation of women’s offices. After completing her studies, she began working as a research assistant before earning an LL.M. at Harvard Law School. There, she met female professors for the first time and experienced the interplay between theory and practice in American law, which had a lasting influence on her later work.
Upon returning to Switzerland, she opened her own law firm and led pioneering cases, including the first major equal pay lawsuit, which reached the Federal Supreme Court and had lasting effects on both cantonal and national legal practice. Alongside her work as a lawyer, she taught at the University of Basel, where she introduced the topic of gender law into the university curriculum for the first time through her course “Women and Law.” Her work was consistently accompanied by publications, lectures, and studies on the implementation of the Gender Equality Act. She also contributed to the development of an alternative draft of the sexual criminal law reform, which focused on a self-determined definition of sexual integrity and the consideration of negligent behavior.
Her commitment to equality and the enforcement of rights also brought her into international contexts; her experiences in the United States and her engagement with Scandinavian legal developments had a significant impact on her. For her achievements, she received honors from the cantons of Basel-City and Basel-Country, as well as an honorary doctorate from the University of Basel. Elisabeth Freivogel thus stands as an exemplary jurist who advanced the fight for equality not only in theory but also through concrete litigation and institutional action.