Slovenia’s long-awaited liberation from the Fascist yoke in 1945 ushered in another era of repression for many people. Those who did not submit to the ideology of the Communist Party quickly found themselves targets of the new regime. Among them was Ljuba Prenner, an iconoclastic attorney who was sent to prison for her determination to defend the regime’s ideological enemies.

Born in the small Carinthian village of Fara in 1906, Prenner had a bright legal career ahead of her in the 1930s. She had overcome systemic sexism to obtain a law degree and was a widely respected attorney, despite her most unconventional appearance: She wore a suit and tie, sported a men’s haircut, and hung out mostly with her male colleagues. She also had a lifelong relationship with a female teacher named Štefka Vrhnjak– a social taboo at the time. In her spare time, Prenner was also a prolific writer, and authored Slovenia’s first crime thriller.

When World War II broke out, Prenner was quick to join the anti-Fascist Liberation Front. She rescued several Slovenians from Axis-run labor camps by finding legal loopholes on their behalf. However, her free thinking, her liberalism, and her determination to speak her mind quickly got her in trouble with the Communist Party, which had an increasingly dominant role in the Liberation Front.

After the war, Prenner defended the new regime’s dissidents in court, to the increasing annoyance of the Communist Party. In 1949, the authorities finally had enough; they imprisoned Prenner and sent her to a women’s labor camp, where she spent the following two years.

She was released a time when the regime was undergoing a slight liberalization. She was allowed to practice law gain and once again, and she became a prominent defender of people with hopeless legal cases. The regime continued to distrust her, however, and she was not able to get her literary works published.

Prenner died in 1977. It was only after her death, and the advent of democracy in Slovenia, that she finally received the recognition she had always deserved. Today, she is known not just as one of Slovenia’s most preeminent lawyers of all time, but also as a pathbreaker for women and a principled human being with an unconventional point-of-view and the courage to tackle the authorities on behalf of those who needed help the most.