“Lavinia Goodell is a shrewd, quick-witted girl, fond of humor, studious and argumentative.”
Lippincott’s Magazine, March 1879
Lavinia Goodell received a fair amount of national media attention during the years she practiced law in Wisconsin. While precise numbers are virtually impossible to come by, it is fair to say that when Lavinia was admitted to practice law in the summer of 1874 there were fewer than a dozen women lawyers in the entire country. The novelty of her admission made her newsworthy, and her epic battle with Chief Justice Ryan in which she sought to be admitted to practice before the Wisconsin Supreme Court generated many columns of ink.
The March 1879 issue of Lippincott’s Magazine contained a profile of Lavinia written by someone identified only by the initials M.W.P.

The identity of the author is unknown, but he or she evidently knew Lavinia during the time she worked at Harper’s Bazar (1867 to 1871). The piece gave one of the most detailed descriptions of Lavinia’s appearance and personality:
When I first knew Miss Goodell, she was employed in a literary way in the office of Harper’s Bazar – a shrewd, quick-witted girl, fond of humor, studious and argumentative. In person she was of medium height, but looking tall from her slender, erect figure, blue-eyed, and with light brown curling hair.
