Editor's note: Former Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson died Dec. 19. This article was originally published in June 2019.
Shirley Abrahamson and Ruth Bader Ginsburg go way back. Longtime friends, they were both on President Bill Clinton’s short list of candidates to replace U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White in 1993. Ginsburg, of course, got the nod but the two have remained close. So it is fitting that a video tribute from Ginsburg would cap off a moving program at the state Capitol on June 18 honoring Abrahamson, the longest-serving Supreme Court justice in Wisconsin history and its first woman justice, who is retiring from the bench in July.
“Among jurists I have encountered in the United States and abroad, Shirley Abrahamson is the very best, the most courageous and sage, the least self-regarding,” said Ginsburg who, like Abrahamson, is in her 80s. “In her 40 years and more on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court as justice, then chief justice, she has been ever mindful of the people, all of the people the law exists, or should exist, to serve. She never forgets Dr. Seuss’ gentle maxim: ‘A person’s a person no matter how small.’”
Ginsburg also praised Abrahamson for contributing “enormously to the advancement of women’s opportunities and well-being in the legal profession. As lawyer, law teacher and judge, she has inspired legions to follow in her way, to strive constantly to make the legal system genuinely equal and accessible to all who dwell in our fair land.”
Many of those she inspired and mentored packed the second floor Rotunda for the few seats available, while others watched the speakers, including Gov. Tony Evers and journalist John Nichols, from the floors above. Lea VanderVelde traveled from Iowa City where she teaches law for the opportunity to honor Abrahamson, whom she met while in law school at UW-Madison in the mid-1970s.
VanderVelde remembers going to Abrahamson’s swearing-in ceremony in 1976 with six other women law students. It was a time when there were few women law students, few women attorneys, and almost no women judges.
Claudia Looze
Lea VanderVelde was a law student at UW-Madison when Shirley Abrahamson became a Supreme Court justice. She says Abrahamson's example inspired countless young, aspiring lawyers like herself.
“There was just a crowd of people who overflowed the rooms that had been assigned, first the court chambers, and then we were moved to the largest of the legislative assemblies. And people were pouring out the aisles and standing in the galleries. They set up audio so everyone could hear. And I remember my friend turning and saying, ‘Remember this. There’s a woman judge. There’s a woman on the Supreme Court. That means we can be lawyers.’”
Former Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske, one of seven speakers on the program, hosted by the UW Law School, Marquette University Law School and the State Bar of Wisconsin, also talked about how Abrahamson’s example inspired her “and thousands of girls and women to become lawyers and in many cases judges.” Geske, now a member of the Marquette University Board of Trustees, shared some details about Abrahamson’s early years. How she grew up in New York and New Jersey, the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Poland, and decided at 6 that she would become a lawyer. And how, at just 19, Abrahamson went to law school at the University of Indiana, where she graduated first in her class. She met her husband, Seymour, there and the two moved to Madison for his post-doc work in zoology.
Former Gov. Jim Doyle, whose father’s law firm, La Follette, Sinykin, Doyle & Anderson, hired Abrahamson in 1962 as the firm’s first woman attorney, noted how lucky Wisconsin was that the two landed in the Badger state.
Mary Langenfeld
Former Gov. Jim Doyle's father hired Justice Abrahamson at La Follette, Sinykin, Doyle & Anderson in 1962. She was the firm's first woman attorney.
“As a former governor of the state I can’t help but think how fortunate we are that this is the state ... where Seymour and Shirley Abrahamson came to make a home and pursue their careers. They came here and they changed Wisconsin and from this place, both of them in their respective spheres, helped change the world.”
Abrahamson became a partner at La Follette, practicing law for 14 years, while also teaching at the UW Law School. In 1976 Gov. Patrick Lucey tapped her for the high court. Now battling cancer, she announced in May 2018 that she would not seek reelection.
Abrahamson is widely regarded as one of the country’s finest legal minds and legal scholars and one of the hardest working judges anywhere. Diane Sykes, a federal appeals judge and former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, noted that even when the two disagreed on cases “the strength of her work always made mine better.”
Sykes, considered a conservative jurist, also spoke about Abrahamson’s hospitality. “She warmly welcomed me when I arrived in 1999. That warmth and the spirit of shared commitment to the important work of the court continued throughout our time together and for that I am most grateful.”
Mary Langenfeld
Bretta and Stephen Zighelboim, who were married by Justice Abrahamson, were among the many who lined up to greet Abrahamson after the conclusion of the program.
Sykes’ words were particularly poignant given that Abrahamson, later in her tenure, came to preside over an increasingly partisan and divided court. Some conservatives blamed Abrahamson, who aligned with the court’s liberals, in part for the dissension, tagging her as abrasive and difficult. Abrahamson was eventually removed as chief justice by the conservative majority on the court after the GOP-led Legislature pushed through a referendum, approved by state residents, that eliminated the seniority rule for the selection of chief justice.
Abrahamson addressed the state of the courts in her brief remarks.
“The need for an independent judiciary, both in this state and in the country, has never been greater,” said Abrahamson. “As partisan sentiment escalates beyond productive to poisonous, so too does the importance of a neutral and fair judicial branch, at every level, from municipal courts to trial courts and the appellate court system. From the day I took the oath of office I believed in the concept of an independent judiciary. I still believe in it. I hope you do as well.”
