MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday renamed the State Law Library in honor of Lavinia Goodell, the first woman to practice law in Wisconsin.
Goodell, a Janesville resident, was admitted to the bar in Rock County in 1874 and became the first woman to argue and win a case before the state Supreme Court.
Three of Wisconsin’s six female Supreme Court justices attended the renaming ceremony to celebrate Goodell’s legacy.
“She was indeed a force to be reckoned with,” Justice Ann Walsh Bradley said. “The work of Lavinia’s legacy is ongoing. History is unfolding.”
Watch: Supreme Court's law library renamed to honor Lavinia Goodell:
Walsh Bradley noted that the renaming marked the first time a state-owned building in Wisconsin has been named after a woman.
“Just knowing that she had the fortitude to be the trailblazer that she was makes me very proud,” said Goodell’s great-grandniece, Rachel Frost Starkey. “When they said this was the first building in the state of Wisconsin to be named after a woman, that blew my mind. It touched me very deeply.”
Goodell, the daughter of a New York abolitionist, began her career working at newspapers and writing for Harper’s Bazar before following her aging parents to Wisconsin in the early 1870s.
She self-studied to become a lawyer and eventually appealed one of her cases to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where she was initially denied the right to argue. Goodell then worked with state lawmakers to draft a law barring Wisconsin courts from denying someone a law license based on sex. In 1879, one year before her death, Goodell argued before the state Supreme Court.
The renaming of the law library sparked anger from conservatives when the court first announced it in June, on the 150th anniversary of Goodell’s admission to the Rock County bar. This was because renaming the library meant removing the name of conservative former Justice David Prosser, who retired in 2016.
Liberal justices gained control of the court last fall for the first time in more than 15 years. Prosser and Walsh Braldey, who is ideologically liberal, clashed when the court was under conservative control. The tension came to a boiling point during an argument in 2011, when he put his hands around her throat in what he claimed was self-defense.
In a post on social media earlier this year, conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley called the renaming a “petty and vindictive maneuver.”
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