Edith Fine was born in New York City on May 27, 1930. She graduated from Barnard College and Harvard Law School during the first few years that school admitted women. She began her legal career as a law clerk for Justice Arthur E. Whittemore of the Supreme Judicial Court. She worked as a research assistant at Yale Law School before teaching at Puerto Rico Law School for a year. Justice Fine worked for the Maryland Civil Liberties Union and the Office of Economic Opportunity. Later, she became an attorney for the law department of the city of Boston. There she worked closely with the school system and won several cases in front of the Supreme Judicial Court. Governor
Francis Sargent appointed Justice Fine to the District Court in 1973, and Governor Michael Dukakis elevated her twice: first to the Superior Court in 1977 and then to the Appeals Court in 1984. Justice Fine also chaired the commission examining the trial de novo process, and her committee's report was instrumental to the end of that process. She retired from the Appeals Court in 1995 and passed away later that year, survived by her three children.
The Appeals Court's Memorial to Justice Fine may be found at 40 Mass. App. Ct. 1135 (1996).
Contact for Associate Justice Edith W. Fine
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