Lavinia Goodell
Wisconsin's First Woman Lawyer

Adapted from the Women's Legal History Biography Project  

Rhoda Lavinia Goodell was born in 1839, in the "burned-over district" of upstate New York, famous at the time both for evangelical religion and women's rights. Her father was a reverend, abolitionist, and editor of the antislavery newspaper The Friend of Man. Abolitionists and fugitive slaves were welcome guests in the Goodell home. If the spirited conversations around the dinner table were not enough to forge Lavinia's personal and political views, there was always her dinner plate, inscribed with words from the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." Lavinia would later say, "When I sat down to dinner every day I read my plate, till I had learned it all by heart – learned it so well that I never forgot it."

Although a family with such strong beliefs about equality amongst the races might be expected to have equally strong beliefs about the equality of the sexes, this seems not to have always been the case. At 18, Lavinia wrote to her sister about what to do after graduation from girls school; she doubted the support of her parents:  

I think the study of law would be pleasant, but the practice attended with many embarrassments. Indeed I fear it would be utterly impracticable. Our folks would not hear of my going to college; I should not dare mention it. Mamma is very much afraid I shall become identified with the "women's rights movement."

Lavinia's mother never did accept her daughter's decision to study law, although her father eventually said she was "cut out for a lawyer."

Lavinia began to study law at the age of 32, after moving with her parents to Wisconsin. It was the standard of the day for students to "read law", rather than attending a law school. This study was usually under the supervision of a senior lawyer, the student serving as an apprentice and assistant. This on-the-job training was extremely beneficial to the student, but no local law firm would take Lavinia under its wing, so she studied on her own. She wrote to her sister that local lawyers were "suffering for the want of students to help" but they "would not let me in, because I was a woman. They would sooner hire shiftless, incompetent boys, that are continually bringing them grief, than take my services gratis, when they know how steady I am and anxious to learn."  

Goodell knew this put her at a disadvantage. Young men who were taken in as apprentices received, "an insight into practical law, through their cases learning more in a week than I could in a month of unaided study." One local law firm did allow Lavinia the use of its library and occasional instruction and advice, and employed her as a copyist. While studying in the library of A. A. Jackson and Pliny Norcross, Lavinia won over Pliny Norcross, one of the partners. When she applied for admission to the Rock County bar, Caption Norcross, as he was known, helped her prepare. "He came around lovely, and promised to aid and abet me all in his power."

She succeeded. Although the Circuit Judge had his doubts about admitting Goodell, he could find no legal impediment to her admission. Determining her to be a resident of Wisconsin, of good moral character, and "possessed of sufficient legal knowledge and ability," Judge Herman Conger certified Lavinia's application. She was admitted to the Rock County bar on June 17, 1874, earning from the Rock County Register the comment "[S]he is a lady of acknowledged ability and will no doubt be a shining light among the legal profession."  

When one of her cases went up on appeal, Goodell sought admission to the State Bar so she could argue it. She was denied, on the basis that the admissions statute used the masculine pronoun, e.g.  "... an attorney in the circuit courts of this state, he shall be first licensed ...  ." She sought support from the legislature, which soon changed the statute. Admitted in 1879, Lavina Goodell won her first case before the Wisconsin Supreme Court shortly before her death in 1880.