Elise
Élise Poisson was born in Montreal, Quebec, the largest city in the province. Her legal education and early professional life took place in the same city, a centre of Quebec's business and legal communities, where the province's civil law tradition operates alongside the common law system used in the rest of Canada.
Poisson studied law at the Université de Montréal and graduated in 1985, according to her law firm's 2014 announcement of her appointment. A federal government notice issued the same year instead credited her bachelor of law degree to the Université du Québec à Montréal.
The Université de Montréal began in 1878 as a branch of Université Laval in Montreal, under the name Université Laval à Montréal. Its Faculty of Law became part of the university when it received its provincial charter in 1920, and the faculty later ranked first among Canadian civil law schools in Maclean's magazine until 2017.
The Université du Québec à Montréal is a French-language public university that forms part of the Université du Québec network. Its law programme was the institution named in the 2014 federal notice for her bachelor of law degree.
Poisson's legal career was based in Montreal at Lavery O'Brien and then Lavery, de Billy. She was an articling student with the firm in 1986 and was hired as an associate the same year. Lavery O'Brien had been founded in Montreal in 1979, and in 1991 it merged with the Quebec City firm Gagnon, de Billy, Cantin, Beaudoin, Lesage & Associés to become Lavery, de Billy. The combined firm traced its origins to Quebec City in 1913.
She became a partner in 1994 and practised civil and commercial litigation for more than twenty-five years, advising clients from the private and public sectors. She contributed to the training of many young lawyers at the firm and sat on its board of directors from 2004 to 2012.
In December 2009 the firm announced that she would succeed Richard Dolan as managing partner from January 2010, making her the first woman to hold that post in the firm's history. Dolan had led the firm for the previous decade. She served as managing partner until the end of 2012 and resumed civil and commercial litigation practice on January 1, 2013.
During her term as managing partner, the Canadian Lawyer magazine ranked Lavery first among Quebec's regional law firms in 2010 and again in 2012, based on surveys of lawyers, managing partners and corporate legal advisers. In 2012 she described the recognition as a reflection of the firm's importance in Quebec.
In 2014 the federal Minister of Justice announced her appointment as a judge of the Superior Court of Quebec, effective October 9, 2014, to sit in Montreal and replace Judge Mark Schrager, who had been appointed to the Court of Appeal of Quebec. The Superior Court, created in 1849, is the province's court of general jurisdiction and hears civil, family, commercial, criminal and administrative matters.
By April 2025 she was serving as coordinating judge of the Terrebonne judicial district of the Superior Court of Quebec.
Poisson has been a member of the Quebec bar since 1986, the year she was admitted to practise following her legal education. The Barreau du Québec is the professional body that regulates lawyers in Quebec, and membership in it is required to practise law in the province.
She was a member of the Quebec division of the Canadian Bar Association, a national professional association of lawyers founded in 1896 to serve the legal profession and promote law reform. Within the division she served on the executive, including the insurance and civil litigation section.
She also belonged to the management committee of the Forum des femmes juristes, the women lawyers' forum of the Quebec division. In addition, she chaired the research ethics committee of Héma-Québec, the public blood services organization in Quebec.
Barreau du Québec , Canada
1986
Member of the division's executive, including its insurance and civil litigation section
Canadian Bar Association, Quebec Division , Canada
Member of the forum's management committee
Forum des femmes juristes , Canada
Chair of the research ethics committee
Héma-Québec , Canada
