Celebrating March 22, 1877: Women First Allowed Bar Admission in Wisconsin

On March 22, 1877, the Wisconsin legislature passed a bill that prohibited denying a person admission to the state bar on the basis of sex.  The bill was in no small part due to the efforts of Lavinia Goodell, the first woman admitted to the state bar in Wisconsin.

Goodell was born in New York in 1839 and moved to Janesville in 1871 when she was 32 years old.  Goodell was interested in the law, but no law firm would take her on as an apprentice, which was a common path to becoming a lawyer in the 19th century.  So she studied law on her own.  Her dedication to law apparently won over Pliny Norcross, a partner in the Janesville firm of Norcross and Jackson and eventually Goodell worked there before striking out on her own.  Norcross was instrumental in helping Goodell gain admission to the Rock County bar in 1874.  Goodell initially did collections work, but then began to make a successful career out of doing work for women’s temperance groups.

It wasn’t until Goodell needed to appeal a case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court that her gender became an issue.  According to the Wisconsin Historical Society, at that time it was customary for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to allow any lawyer admitted to any circuit court bar to practice before it.  Not so for Lavinia Goodell.

In 1876, Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously and unequivocally denied her motion to appear before that court. (In re Goodell, 39 Wis. 232 (1876)).

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Bias Beware

A friend sent me a recent blog post from the “Legal Skills Prof Blog” (who knew?) that she thought might be of interest to me in light of my current endeavor at blogging. The post briefly discusses the “negativity bias,” one of the many cognitive biases that can result from our unconscious use of heuristics. It reminded me of how significant these mental shortcuts are to us.

At its simplest, the negativity bias causes us to feel the sting of a negative experience or loss to a much greater degree than a positive. (Think of the bad customer service experience that never seems to diminish, while a good one, while nice at the time, quickly fades into oblivion.)

The author then goes on to ask whether or not this might provide a lesson in terms of pitching the best legal arguments. I have certainly seen the “parade of horribles” work to encourage parties in mediation to find a solution rather than continue the pain of the dispute at hand. I think the greater lesson is that as lawyers, we should be aware of the use of heuristics and the cognitive biases that may result from the unknowing misapplication of heuristics by an individual in evaluating information and then using this information to make a decision.

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The Top Five Skills Necessary to be a Lawyer

Hello to the blogosphere! Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Joanne Lipo Zovic, and I am a 1999 MULS grad. By way of background, my current (and very schizophrenic) professional life is comprised of a small private practice, work on a court-appointment in Chapter 128 cases, and teaching both at MULS and UWM and some private training (my teaching is all in the field of Negotiations). This rather unique work life reflects my deliberate effort to have flexibility in order to fulfill my most demanding job as a mother of four teenagers. Crazy as it may appear, it works . . . most of the time.

When I was contacted about being an alumni blogger some time last year, I paused for a brief moment and then said yes. Like the bliss of pregnancy and the denial of eventual childbirth, blogging seemed painless. However, . . . it began to feel uncomfortable as February began to loom.

What could I possibly write about? And more . . . what can I write about that would be at all interesting to the readers, whoever they may be. I was reminded of the scene in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” where Steve Martin’s character chides John Candy’s character as Candy blathers on and on endlessly. Martin advises Candy that when you tell a story, you should try to have a point because “it makes it so much more interesting for the listener.”

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