Anna-Lisa Vinberg was a female pioneer among judges and she was the first woman to be appointed chief district judge in Sweden.

Anna-Lisa Vinberg was born in Skövde in 1908. She gained her school-leaving certificate from Gothenburg high school for girls in 1928. She then went on to read law at Uppsala. In December 1932 she gained her LL. B. Having spent a few years working in a legal office and qualifying as a court official in the Mark judicial district in Skene during the 1938–1939 period, Anna-Lisa Vinberg became employed at the Göta court of appeal in Jönköping. In 1940 she was appointed appeal clerk at the same court. During the 1942–1943 period she worked as a court session secretary at the Askim, Hisingen, and Sävedal judicial courts as well as at Flundre judicial court in Trollhättan. Anna-Lisa Vinberg further served as acting district court judge in Borås, thereby becoming the first female presiding wedding official in Sweden. She came to Gothenburg in 1948 when Hovrätten för Västra Sverige (court of appeal for western Sweden) was established there. In September that year she was appointed extraordinary associate judge of appeal at the court of appeal, thereby becoming the first woman to hold that post.

After having spent a few years working as audit secretary at the Högsta domstolen (Supreme Court), where she served as reporter of court matters, Anna-Lisa Vinberg was then appointed fulltime assistant judge at Hovrätten för Västra Sverige in Gothenburg in 1951. In December 1953 she became the first woman in Sweden to be appointed judge of appeal, again at Hovrätten för Västra Sverige. Anna-Lisa herself said of her appointment that: “Of course I am happy to have received this appointment although I do not find it especially pleasing just because I am a woman”.

In December 1962 Anna-Lisa Vinberg was the first female chief district judge to gain appointment in the Hisingen, Sävedal, and Kungälv court of appeal. She entered the post on 1 March 1963 and held it until 1970. Following the judicial reforms of 1971 Anna-Lisa Vinberg continued working at the Sävedal court of appeal until her retirement in 1973.

Anna-Lisa Vinberg was thus the first woman in Sweden to fulfil the career trajectory of a judge, all the way to chief district judge. She herself did not believe that she had been the victim of unfair treatment with regard to appointments purely due to her sex. She had certainly experienced a certain resistance when she started out in her career but she was never confronted by any major difficulties in her role as a female judge. In November 1971 she was awarded the commander’s insignia of the Order of the Polar Star.

Anna-Lisa Vinberg died in 1991. She is buried at the Jewish cemetery in Prague.