Abstract: A secretarial chair has a backrest with improved vertical adjustment capabilities. The backrest includes a vertical back brace having aligned vertical notches. A tubular slide slides over the back brace. The slide supports a housing contains a vertically reciprocable latch that actuates a horizontally reciprocable plunger. The plunger has a finger end adapted to enter the back brace notches. Depressing the latch against a spring actuates the plunger to disengage it from the back brace notches, and the backrest can then be positioned to any desired location on the back brace. With the backrest at the desired location, the latch is released, and the spring biases the latch to an extended position and simultaneously actuates the plunger to engage the appropriate back brace notches. The latch can be depressed and the backrest adjusted by a person sitting in the chair, thereby eliminating trial and error adjustments.