{"id":16747,"date":"2012-03-22T15:52:48","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T20:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=16747"},"modified":"2012-03-22T17:04:36","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T22:04:36","slug":"celebrating-march-22-1877-women-first-allowed-bar-admission-in-wisconsin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2012\/03\/celebrating-march-22-1877-women-first-allowed-bar-admission-in-wisconsin\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating March 22, 1877: Women First Allowed Bar Admission in Wisconsin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>On March 22, 1877<\/a>, the Wisconsin legislature passed a bill that prohibited denying a person admission to the state bar on the basis of sex.\u00a0 The bill was in no small part due to the efforts of Lavinia Goodell<\/a>, the first woman admitted to the state bar in Wisconsin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Goodell was born in New York in 1839 and moved to Janesville in 1871 when she was 32 years old.\u00a0 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<\/sup> century.\u00a0 So she studied law on her own.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Norcross was instrumental in helping Goodell gain admission to the Rock County bar in 1874.\u00a0 Goodell initially did collections work, but then began to make a successful career out of doing work for women\u2019s temperance groups.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until Goodell needed to appeal a case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court that her gender became an issue.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Not so for Lavinia Goodell.<\/p>\n

In 1876, Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously and unequivocally denied her motion to appear before that court. (In re Goodell<\/em>, 39 Wis. 232 (1876)). Chief Justice Edward G. Ryan<\/a> wrote that court must be \u201ccareful of its bar and jealous of the rule of admission to it, with the view of fostering in it the highest order of professional excellence.\u201d (39 Wis at 239.)\u00a0 For Ryan, while there were statutes that governed rules for admission to circuit courts, there were no statutes governing the rules of admission to the supreme court, \u201cleaving admission here, as it ought to be, in the discretion of the court.\u201d (39 Wis. at 241.) Yet the petition was based on what Ryan called an \u201cassumed right [of admission to the supreme court] founded on admission in a circuit court.\u201d (29 Wis. at 241.)\u00a0 Ryan proceeded to analyze the statutes that governed admission to circuit courts and found that while they never expressly said so, those statutes applied only to males, given the Legislature\u2019s use of the gendered pronoun \u201che.\u201d\u00a0 (39 Wis. at 241.)\u00a0 Ryan dismissed the argument that the \u201che\u201d should be read to include \u201cshe\u201d as contrary to legislative intent, for \u201c[i]f we should follow that authority in ignoring the distinction of sex, we do not perceive why it should not emasculate the constitution itself and include females in the constitutional right of male suffrage . . . .\u201d (39 Wis. at 242.)<\/p>\n

Finding no statutory authority for Goodell\u2019s automatic admission to practice before the supreme court based on her admission to practice in Rock County circuit courts, Ryan proceeded to deny her admission based simply and solely on her gender, for her character and qualifications were never questioned. In fact, he noted her character \u201craises no personal objection:\u00a0 something perhaps not always to be looked for in women who forsake the ways of their sex for the ways of ours.\u201d (39 Wis. at 240-41.)\u00a0 The profession of law, according to Ryan, has to do with the well being of society and such a task requires devotion to it.\u00a0 Women, in his view, needed to be devoted to home and children because that was the law of nature.\u00a0 If women wanted to do something other than take care of hearth and home \u2013 \u201csacred duties of their sex\u201d \u2013 such desires would be \u201cdepartures from the order of nature; and when voluntary, treason against it.\u201d (39 Wis. at 245.)<\/p>\n

According to Ryan, women had specific qualities that made them unsuited to be lawyers.\u00a0 He wrote,<\/p>\n

The peculiar qualities of womanhood, its gentle graces, its quick sensibility, its tender susceptibility, its parity, its delicacy, its emotional impulses, its subordination of hard reason to sympathetic feeling, are surely not qualifications for forensic strife. Nature has tempered \u00a0[23] woman as little for the juridical conflicts of the court room, as for the physical conflicts of the battle field. (39 Wis. at 245.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As well, Ryan noted the law deals with \u201call the nastiness of the world . . . all the unclean issues.\u201d (39 Wis. at 245.)\u00a0 Here Ryan lists a multitude of issues that could be categorized criminal law and family law issues (sodomy, incest, rape, fornication, pregnancy, legitimacy, prostitution, among others), never once mentioning the multitude of less sensationalized issues with which lawyers deal, such as writing wills, handling estates, drafting contracts, organizing businesses.\u00a0 Nonetheless, discussions on these nasty and unclean issues \u201care habitually necessary in courts of justice, which [discussions] are unfit for female ears.\u201d (39 Wis. at 246.)<\/p>\n

The Wisconsin Historical Society notes that one of Goodell\u2019s biggest supporters was John Cassoday, then the Speaker of the State Assembly.\u00a0 Following the supreme court\u2019s denial of her application, Cassoday introduced a bill that explicitly allowed women to be admitted to the Wisconsin bar.\u00a0 The bill passed and became law on March 22, 1877.\u00a0 It amended Section 5 of chapter 189 of the laws of 1861, governing admission of attorneys to courts of record, by adding the following \u201cProvided, that no person shall be denied a license under this act on account of sex.\u201d 1877 Laws of Wisconsin, ch. 300.<\/p>\n

Lavinia Goodell filed another petition for admission to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1879. That petition was granted, with Chief Justice Ryan the sole dissenter.\u00a0 She would go on to win her first case before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, a decision that appears unanimous. (Ingalls v. State<\/em>, 48 Wis. 647 (1880))<\/p>\n

It would be interesting to know Chief Justice Ryan\u2019s reaction if he heard that the state\u2019s high court contains a majority of women (four women members<\/a>), one of whom<\/a> has served as the state\u2019s Chief Justice since August 1, 1996.<\/p>\n

(Ed. Note:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Some sources list Goodell\u2019s admission to the supreme court as being granted in 1897 \u2013 an impossibility because Goodell died March 31, 1880.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,64,36,122,3,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism","category-legal-history","category-legal-practice","category-public","category-wisconsin","category-wisconsin-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}