Ruth Ida Abrams (December 26, 1930 – September 12, 2019) was the first female justice of the
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, where she served from 1978 to 2000, and the first female
appellate
In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...
justice in
Massachusetts
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.
Justice Abrams was a graduate of
Radcliffe College's Class of 1953. She went on to graduate from
Harvard Law School as one of approximately a dozen women in the Class of 1956. She was an assistant district attorney for Middlesex County (MA), where she helped prosecute
Albert DeSalvo
Albert Henry DeSalvo (September 3, 1931 – November 25, 1973) was an American rapist and suspected serial killer in Boston, Massachusetts, who purportedly confessed to being the "Boston Strangler," the murderer of thirteen women in the Boston ...
, the "Boston Strangler"
and also served with the State Attorney General's Office. Justice Abrams also served as special counsel to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and as a Superior Court Judge before then-Governor Michael Dukakis appointed her to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1978, the first woman on the Court. It would be another 19 years before another woman was appointed a justice to the SJC. Serving with distinction, she retired from the court at the age of 70.
Among her notable decisions on the court were ones protecting the rights of pregnant women against discrimination in disability insurance, strengthening the rights of divorced women, and a pioneering grant of visitation rights after a breakup to a lesbian who had helped raise her partner’s son.
She came from a family with a strong legal tradition. Abrams is the daughter of Samuel Abrams, an attorney and
Harvard Law School graduate who had the unique distinction of being the first man in America to be graduated from Harvard Law and have both a daughter and a son (George S. Abrams) who also were graduated from the law school. Her other sister was also a lawyer, she had an uncle who was a lawyer who had a son and son-in-law who were lawyers too.
Justice Abrams was noted for being a mentor to countless women attorneys, many of whom followed her to the bench.
Margaret Marshall, the next female justice of the SJC and later its first female chief justice, cited her for encouraging her to apply for a judgeship.
See also
*
List of female state supreme court justices Female state supreme court justices
First female justices
Below is a list of the names of the first woman to sit on the highest court of their respective states in the United States.
The first state with a female justice was Ohio; Florence E. ...
*
List of Jewish American jurists
This is a list of notable Jewish American jurists. For other famous Jewish Americans, see Lists of American Jews.
Supreme Court of the United States
Federal judges Appellate judges
* Robert E. Bacharach, Judge of the United States Court of ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abrams, Ruth
1930 births
2019 deaths
20th-century American Jews
Lawyers from Newton, Massachusetts
Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Radcliffe College alumni
Harvard Law School alumni
20th-century American judges
20th-century American women judges
Massachusetts Superior Court justices