State Bar of Wisconsin

Olga Bennett
1935
(1908-1985)

Olga Bennett was a woman of many firsts: the first woman to practice law in the then Wisconsin Sixth Judicial Circuit consisting of La Crosse, Vernon, and Monroe counties, the first woman to be selected Viroqua city attorney, probably the only elected judge ever to successfully defend an "Ouster Action." And she was one of the first elected woman judges in Wisconsin.

Olga lived all of her 77 years in Viroqua, Vernon County, Wisconsin, except for her post-high school education including attendance at the University of Wisconsin and its law school, and five years immediately following her admission to the bar as a law clerk for Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice John D. Wickhem.

Olga was born to a pioneer Vernon County family. Her great-grandfather Bennett had served many years as Vernon County clerk. Her father, J. Henry Bennett, practiced law for 61 years in Viroqua, and was for many years the dean of the Vernon County Bar.

A 1925 graduate of Viroqua High School, where she had starred on the debate team, Olga got her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin in 1928 at age 20. After working four years in the Viroqua Farmers Bank and after a short stint at Madison Business College, Olga entered the U.W. Law School in 1933 (without her father's encouragement or knowledge), graduated, and was admitted to practice in 1935. After clerking for Justice Wickhem, she joined her father as a partner in Bennett & Bennett in 1941 and, except for her six-year term as Vernon County judge from 1969 to 1975, she practiced law out of the Bennett Law Office Building on Main Street in Viroqua to within a few days of her death.

Olga and her father disagreed as to whether being a woman lawyer was a handicap. In 1944 when Olga was having a problem as the city attorney, believing it was the result of her gender, Mr. Bennett wrote, "It is the penalty she must bear for having been born a woman." Olga believed that she was not discriminated against as a woman lawyer, although she agreed that practicing with a father who was the leader of the local bar no doubt helped. But being elected to the county judgeship, and holding that office, was another story.

After winning the 1969 spring election over an appointed incumbent, Olga was forced to defeat an attempt to oust her from office by the election loser and his supporters. At that time Chapter 12 of the Wisconsin Statues, entitled "Corrupt Practices Relating to Elections," contained a prohibition against the use of false statements in the election campaign, similar to present section 12.05, and provided for "special proceedings and counsel to prosecute violations," - the conviction of which resulted in the successful candidate being ousted from the office and prohibited from again seeking the vacated office. The complainant under the then law, before being allowed to prosecute the ouster action, was required to satisfy a high state official that there was probable cause the action would succeed - a hearing similar to our present preliminary hearings in criminal prosecutions. In a well-publicized hearing before then attorney general, now senior federal district judge Robert W. Warren, no such cause was found, and Olga was sworn into office by circuit judge Peter G. Pappas. The group that failed to unseat her in the ouster action succeeded in 1975 by recruiting and supporting a rival candidate. Olga Bennett then returned to her successful law practice at the Bennett Law Office, dying shortly after completing 50 years on the bench and in the practice of law.

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• Biographies of the First 150 Women Lawyers
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