Eliza Feld, 86, a lawyer who became a writing instructor

Just one of nine women among 220 men to pass the 1948 bar exam in Massachusetts, Eliza McCormick Feld was not a person to shy away from a challenge. The lawyer- turned-writing instructor, known for her unabated zeal and critical eye, embraced life with a vigor that helped her land a job when women lawyers were rare.

"She was not a measured person; she felt so passionately about things," said Mameve Medwed, a friend and former student. "She was just mesmerizing."

Ms. Feld, lawyer and longtime instructor at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, died March 23 at Keystone Hospice in Philadelphia of complications of lung cancer. She was 86.

Born in Wilmington, N.C., Ms. Feld grew up in Washington, D.C. After briefly working in New York City as a restaurant hostess while she pursued acting and modeling, Ms. Feld moved to Chicago to attend the University of Chicago, graduating with a law degree in 1947.

Ms. Feld moved to Cambridge in 1948 with her husband, Bernard, a nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project. They later divorced.

Despite passing the state bar, Ms. Feld had difficulty finding her first job in Boston when few law firms were hiring women lawyers, said her daughter Ellen of Philadelphia.

In a sign of the times, Ms. Feld's photograph appeared alongside that of another woman in a March 1949 article in the Globe about who passed the December bar, with a caption reading "Beauty and Brains are personified in these successful candidates for the bar." In 1952, she was hired at the Boston Legal Aid Society. Later, she worked at the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers.

Committed to women's causes and actively involved in the civil rights movement, Ms. Feld attended many rallies in Washington, where she witnessed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. give his "I Have a Dream" address.

"Growing up in the South, she became passionate about civil rights," her daughter said. "She could be quite impatient with things she saw as unjust."

In 1971, Ms. Feld published her only novel, "Would You Believe Love?" about a white, liberal Cambridge woman who has an affair with a young black man.

"It is so her personality," her daughter said, adding that it drew harsh criticism at the time from those who incorrectly suspected the story was autobiographical. "It was hurtful to have people react that way. If you write fiction, you expect it to be read as fiction."

Soon after, however, Ms. Feld was asked to teach a creative writing course at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. At first, she was so nervous that she would not have enough students to fill her class that she paid the tuition for two of her neighbors to take the course, telling them they didn't have to attend, Ellen said.

Despite her early worries, Ms. Feld remained an instructor there for more than 30 years and became known both for her candor and constant encouragement.

"She was very honest and could lose her temper, but she was our cheerleader," said Medwed, who is working on publishing her fifth novel. "I always secretly wanted to [write], but I wouldn't have had the confidence without her."

Working until last fall, shortly before she fell ill, Ms. Feld continued to push her students despite failing eyesight, Medwed said. "She'd sit there reading her students' work with a huge magnifying glass, writing comments."

In addition to her daughter Ellen, Ms. Feld leaves another daughter, Elizabeth of Paris, and a grandson and a granddaughter.

A memorial service will be held at a future date.