Claire L'Heureux-Dubé (born September 7, 1927) is a retired Canadian judge who served as a puisne justice on the Supreme Court of Canada from 1987 to 2002. She was the first woman from Quebec and the second woman appointed to this position, after Bertha Wilson. Previously, she had been one of the first woman lawyers to handle divorce cases, and was the first woman appointed as a judge to the Quebec Superior Court and the Quebec Court of Appeal. During L'Heureux-Dubé's time on the country's top court, she earned a reputation as a steadfast feminist and supporter of minority rights. Because roughly 40 percent of the 254 judgements that she wrote were dissents, she became known as the court's "great dissenter". Early life and career L'Heureux-Dubé was born Claire L'Heureux in Quebec City in 1927. She was one of four girls raised by a mother who spent fifty years as a quadriplegic as a result of multiple sclerosis which developed when L'Heureux-Dubé was only nine. L'Heureux-Dubé attended the Ursuline Monastery of Quebec City and worked at a cod liver oil plant in Rimouski, Quebec, but quit when she was nineteen to continue her education. In 1951, she graduated cum laude from the law faculty of Université Laval, despite facing gender discrimination such as not being given scholarships that were awarded to men of similar financial means. She then entered private practice in Quebec. From 1952 until 1973, she worked at L'Heureux, Philippon, Garneau, Tourigny, St-Arnaud & Associates, and was one of the first woman lawyers to work with divorce cases in the province. In February 1973, L'Heureux-Dubé was appointed as a judge onto the Quebec Superior Court, becoming its first woman judge. From 1973 to 1976, she led a federal commission studying immigration problems in the province of Quebec. In October 1979, she was elevated to the Quebec Court of Appeal and was its first female judge. In 1981, she, along with future colleague Rosalie Abella, published Family Law: Dimensions of Justice, about Canadian family law. After eight years and writing 1,200 judgements for the Quebec Court of Appeal, L'Heureux-Dubé was elevated to the Supreme Court of Canada by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in April 1987. Supreme Court L'Heureux-Dubé's elevation to the Supreme Court in 1987 made her the second woman to sit on the country's highest court, after Bertha Wilson. According to L'Heureux-Dubé, a fellow judge on the Supreme