Justine W. Polier

Who was Justine W. Polier?

An outspoken activist and a "fighting judge," Justine Wise Polier was the first woman Justice in New York. For 38 years she used her position on the Family Court bench to fight for the rights of the poor and disempowered. Polier was born April 12, 1903 in Portland, Oregon to Rabbi Stephen Wise and Louise Waterman Wise. Her father was a prominent rabbi and was one of the founders of the American Jewish Congress and the NAACP He was also a leading advocate of a Jewish state and a pro-labor activist. Her mother was an artist and social worker who founded the Free Synagogue Adoption Committee in 1916 in New York.

As a young woman, Polier studied labor relations and advocated for workers’ rights, while also working at a settlement house and textile mill. She attended Bryn Mawr College, Radcliffe College, and Barnard College. In 1925, she enrolled in Yale Law School, where she eventually became editor of the Yale Law Journal. Her first husband was Leon Arthur Tulin, a professor of criminal law at Yale. He died of leukemia in 1932. She married Shad Polier in 1937.

Preferring social legislation to practicing law, Polier worked as the first woman referee and later Assistant Corporate Council for the Workman's Compensation Division. In 1935, New York City Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia offered her a judgeship on the Domestic Relations Court, and at age 32 Polier became the first woman judge in New York State.