Wisconsin’s first woman lawyer had to fight to practice law in the state’s Supreme Court. Admitted into the Rock County Circuit Court in 1874, Lavinia Goodell was denied entry into the state’s bar in 1875 and, therefore, denied the right to practice law at the Wisconsin State Supreme Court.

Ryan's Opinion

Goodell’s 1875 petition to argue a case at the Wisconsin Supreme Court faced a court lead by well-known gender traditionalist, Chief Justice Edward G. Ryan. In writing the court’s unanimous decision, Ryan made his opinion clear:

"We cannot but think the common law wise in excluding women from the profession of the law. The profession enters largely into the well-being of society; and to be honorably filled and safely to society, exacts the devotion of life. The law of nature destines and qualifies the female sex for the bearing and nurture of the children of our race, and for the custody of the homes of the world and their maintenance in love and honor. And all lifelong calling of women inconsistent with these radical and sacred duties of their sex, as is the profession of the law, are departures from the order of nature, and when voluntary, treason against it."

Writing for the court, Ryan found that, "in view of the uniform exclusion of females from the bar by the common law, and in the absence of any other evidence of legislative intent to require their admission" and because "there is nothing in the statutes of this state providing for the admission of females to the bar," women could not practice before the Supreme Court.

Ryan had a history of opposing women's rights, such as adamantly opposing a proposal to give married women property rights at the 1846 Constitutional Convention.

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Lavinia Goodell

Quarter-length oval framed portrait of Lavinia Goodall. View the original source document: WHI 111556

Lavinia Goodell's Rebuttal

Goodell, responded to the decision by firing back in an article published in Chicago Legal News on March 25, 1876, and April 1, 1876. Enlisting the support of John Cassoday, speaker of the State Assembly, Goodell drafted a bill for him to introduce explicitly providing that "no person shall be denied admission or license to practice as an attorney in any court of this state on account of sex." The bill became law on March 22, 1877. In 1878, Goodell made her second application for admission to the bar of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In a four to one decision, the Supreme Court admitted Lavina Goodell to the bar — with only Chief Justice Ryan dissenting

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Shirley Schlanger Abrahamson, 1976

Madison, Wisconsin. Shirley Abrahamson, the first woman to be appointed as a Justice of the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, takes her oath. View the original source document: WHI 98857

Lasting Legacy

Perhaps neither Goodell nor Ryan could have imagined a day when the majority of Wisconsin Supreme Court justices would be women or when the Chief Justice would be a woman. In 1996, Justice Shirley Abrahamson became the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s first female chief justice. By 2007 women held the majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

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Lavinia Goodell

See more about Lavinia Goodell on the Society's website.