Episode 135: Samantha P. Jessner
Presiding Judge, Los Angeles Superior Court
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Judge Samantha P. Jessner is the Presiding Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, the largest trial court in the United States. Judge Jessner discusses the role that mentors, including powerhouse women lawyers like her mother Patricia Phillips and former U.S. Attorney, now Court of Appeal Justice Nora Manella, played in moving her career forward. She also shares what goes into leading the nation's largest trial court, and how she pays it forward to the next generation of women lawyers.
Relevant episode link:
Los Angeles Superior Court , Nicole Bershon – Past Episode , All The Light We Cannot See , The Night And Gale , The Marriage Proposal
About Samantha P. Jessner:
Judge Jessner was appointed to the Los Angeles Superior Court in 2007. She is the Presiding Judge of the Court. She previously served as the Assistant Presiding Judge, Supervising Judge of the Civil Division, the Assistant Supervising Judge of the Civil Division and the Supervising Judge of the Mental Health Courthouse. She also served in the Criminal Division.
Judge Jessner has served as a Co-Chair of the Technology Committee and leads the court’s technology innovation efforts. Her dedication to court technology innovation was recognized by the American Bar Association when she was selected as one of 12 recipients of the ABA’s Legal Technology Resource Center's 2021 Women of Legal Tech annual recognition. She has served on many court committees including as Chair of the Civil and Small Claims Committee, Chair of the court’s Bench-Bar Committee, Vice-Chair of the Ethics Committee, a member of the Civil subcommittee of the Operational Planning Committee, the governing committee of the Judicial Education Committee, and the Civil subcommittee of the Judicial Education Committee, among others.
Judge Jessner serves on the Supreme Court Committee on Judicial Ethics Opinions (“CJEO”) and the Executive Committee of CJEO. She also is a member of the Information Technology Advisory Committee and the Civil and Small Claims Committee of the Judicial Council. Judge Jessner is a New Judge Orientation Instructor for CJER. She is also an instructor for CJER’s ethics curriculum and serves on the Qualifying Ethics Work Group that develops and designs ethics curriculum. She will co-author an update to Rothman, California Handbook on Judicial Conduct Handbook in 2022.
In addition, Judge Jessner teaches the Civil Law Update and Basic Civil Law Overview seminars for the Rutter Group. She is also a founding member of the Association of African American California Judicial Officers, a member of the National Association of Women Judges, and a member of The Trusteeship, which is the Southern California chapter of the International Women’s Forum.
Judge Jessner has received the following awards: the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles, Ernestine Stalhut Award (2021); the John M. Langston Bar Association of Los Angeles, Bernard S. Jefferson Judge of the Year Award (2022); and the California Women Lawyers Association, Joan Dempsey Klein Distinguished Jurist Award (2022)
Prior to joining the court, Judge Jessner was an Assistant United States Attorney with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California (Los Angeles) for approximately 11 years. Judge Jessner started her legal career as a litigation associate with the Los Angeles Office of Sheppard Mullin. In between two tenures at the United States Attorney’s Office, she was in-house counsel for The Boeing Company and an Assistant Inspector General for the Los Angeles Police Commission. Judge Jessner earned a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and a law degree from Berkeley Law.
Presiding Judge, Los Angeles Superior Court
In this episode, I'm very pleased to have join us Judge Samantha Jessner. She is the Presiding Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, the largest trial court in the nation, so there's a lot to deal with there. Welcome, Judge Jessner.
Thank you very much for having me. It's my honor to be here.
I'm interested in your role as a presiding judge of a significant trial court in this nation. It is an important role, one that not many women before you have held, which itself is its own story. Prior to that, you've had a pretty varied career in the US Attorney's Office with the Inspector General in a large law firm. There's a lot of variety to it, and there are some interesting discussions to be had there in terms of the various things you can do in one career and then also serve on the bench. First, I wanted to start with what caused you to think you wanted to go to law school or become a lawyer.
There were a couple of things that steered me toward law school. First and foremost, my mother, Patricia Phillips, is a successful attorney. I can easily brag about my mom for the duration of our time together. She was the first woman president of the LA County Bar and had many more accolades and achievements.
What that meant to me, and I'm 1 of 5 children, so to my siblings as well, is we grew up with a mother who seemed, and I think was, entirely satisfied, challenged, and happy being a lawyer. As far as we could tell, the substantive work was interesting and challenging to her. She loved the other people that she worked with that started out, at least when I became conscious of the name of her law firm, Beardsley Hufstedler & Kemble. It changed over time.
It's a special law firm in its own right as well.
They don't make them like that anymore. Most of her social life was based on the people that she knew as a result of practicing law. She was deeply involved in bar activities. In my very household, I had this extremely positive role model for a lawyer and take it one step further for a woman who had found her place. My mom did find her footing in the practice of law, and as a result of that excelled. That's number one.
Number two, when I was in college, I spent a summer in Washington DC. I was an extern for Senator Alan Cranston, and I will fully admit that I got that job through my mother. I loved the experience. I had the greatest time that summer, but most of the people that I worked with and were there and had jobs, not just for the summer, either had gone to law school or were going to go to law school. I thought, “They seem to think there's a value in doing that.”
Finally, it is much more prosaic. I was not ready to enter the real world. All of my friends were signing, putting suits on, and riding their bikes across campus to be interviewed by all these consulting firms BCG, Bain, etc. I had no interest in that, mostly because I had no idea what that entailed, but that's what people were ready and went off to do. I thought to myself, “That's not something that is calling me. I want to stay in an academic setting for a little while longer.” I was lucky enough to go from Stanford across the Bay to Berkeley for law school.
It was funny when you were mentioning the Bain, the consulting, and getting on bikes with the suits. I was like, “That reminds me of my Stanford undergrad experience too.” I didn’t know what they were either, but it didn’t sound like me.
All of a sudden, people that I'd known for four years were cleaned up, haircut, and a tie. Everybody finds their niche.
What about law school? Did you refine what you might be interested in practicing law during law school? Was there anything about law school that further caused you to make your next choice in the career?
I wrote something in response to a similar question for another publication. It occurred to me that it was important for me to explain that what used to be called Boalt Hall, which is now Berkeley Law, was an ideal atmosphere for law school because it wasn't cutthroat. Many of the 1Ls had taken time off between college and law school. I was not among them, but they had either gone and done something else or started to get another degree or did get another degree.
There was a vibe about that law school at that time that made it very conducive to enjoying learning how to think in a way they want you to think in law school and enjoy the subject matters. Once you get past the mandatory classes of your first year, I gravitated towards things like Discrimination Law, estates and trusts, as we would say nowadays, the humanity side of the law, rather than good corporations and taxation or things like that.
I was thinking more like good stories.
That will be the theme of our discussion. What is interesting to me, and this interest started to percolate back then, is the story behind whatever the case holding is. I took Family Law. We were talking about Herma Hill Kay before the show. She is the dean of Family Law. That's about stories. That's what was interesting to me more than, “Is that citation exactly correct for that proposition?” and things like that. Maybe I should have picked more attention to things like that. I did my one fall semester in my third year. I stayed in Los Angeles and externed for a federal judge. I got the practical side of what the practice of law looks like and entails, at least in a Federal Court setting, which was great. I loved that. I got full credit. It was a wonderful experience.
I love that too. I thought it was a great thing to do in your third year to extern for a judge. It got you into the more practical set of things. Sometimes by the third year, you can be a little jaded by certain classes and this and that. You're like, “I'm almost near graduation.” It was a nice little break up between all of that to get more of that experience.
At that law school, it gave you a frame of reference for everything that you were learning. There are other law schools where your curriculum is more practice-based. That's not what Berkeley was all about. It was like, “This is what William Fletcher was talking about. This is a demurrer or a 12(b)(6) in the federal realm kind of thing.”
In my case, the externship led to clerking. I was interested in learning judicial decision-making. The whole experience was amazing that I was like, “I'd like to do this after school and have a clerkship.” It can open your eyes to a lot of different things and maybe a different path that you hadn't considered, but it's certainly a great opportunity, even if you can't. If you don't think that you could do a full one-year clerkship, having that externship for a judge during law school is invaluable. After law school, did you go into practice into private practice at a large firm first?
I did. I started as an associate in Los Angeles at Sheppard Mullin and stayed there for a couple of years before I then left and went to the US Attorney's Office. In retrospect, I don't know that any young associate feels this way when you're in it, but in retrospect, I was very fortunate to work with partners who I think were old-school-minded in a way because they still believed in giving young associates substantive work and responsibilities. This was a time when the practice of law was changing such that it became, at least the way that it was discussed at the time that it should be the Business of Law.
Law firms were changing their business structures and their billing. There was not a lot of room for, “I'll just write off,” at the time of that young associate because she didn't know what she was doing or something like that. I was fortunate to work with a couple of partners there, such that ultimately I was a second chair on a jury trial, which was amazing. Those partners believed strongly that they had a responsibility to train lawyers to know what lawyering entailed. It was a very good experience.
Something helpful for newer lawyers to look for or to think of is the partners they're working with. Do they have opportunities like that, and are the partners interested in their training? It has to come from the individuals because the financial part of it runs a counterweight to your interest in training the next generation. For people who are committed to that and in giving you the opportunities to shine, that's a special opportunity.
It boils down to they were committed to the notion of the practice of law and the profession of law rather than law for the sake of earning money. If you were to Venn diagram it, it would be great if those two things overlapped. There was a time when lawyers were very much dedicated to ensuring that this was a profession rather than a trade.
Lawyers back then were committed to the practice and the profession of law rather than practicing law for the sake of earning money.
That's where that comes from. It's out of this larger meaning and larger purpose. That's towards the profession at large. That's great that you recognize and see that. Sometimes you don't see it in full until you look backward and you're like, “That was great,” but it's still great to have that opportunity.
As with many things in life, we are experts. We may not have been fully immersed in being present in the experience at the time because it was hard work. Especially as you gain some experience, you gain enough knowledge to go, “Those partners gave me a gift.”
It’s a gift that you brought to the US Attorney's Office. Tell me about that.
The partner that I tried the case with at Sheppard Mullin is Paul Reitler, I always say, “It's Paul Reitler's fault that I left Sheppard Mullin,” because being able to be in that courtroom every day, we tried this case in trailers in Van Nuys because there was construction going on. They had courtrooms and trailers in the heat of the summer. I thought, “This is great. I like being in a courtroom. I like preparing for trial. I like designing or helping design the strategy.” It was that trial that got me thinking about doing something that was not in a law firm environment where I wasn't going to get to go to trial very often.
Again, my mother's connections come in. At the time, Justice Nora Manella was about to retire and was the new United States attorney. Her chief assistant second in command was Steve Zipperstein. He was an associate at Hufstedler. He called my mother, I'm sure he called many people, and said, “We have secured funding to hire,” because there had been a hiring freeze for a long time, “Do you know anyone?” My mother said, “I do.” I applied and was interviewed.
I have many memories of the interview. One of which was this. Nora is a very accomplished ballet dancer. I studied ballet for many years, starting in elementary school and then moving on, and spent my summers with the San Francisco Ballet. I remember distinctly during that interview we talked for some length of time about ballet. I always tell the story that finally, I felt like what a lot of men feel like in an interview where they get to talk about golf and don't know anything about golf. I have no ability to involve or engage myself in a conversation about golf.
I thought, “How many people walked into an interview to become a federal prosecutor, sat down, and talked about ballet?” I worship Nora Manella, but there are many things that I admire about her. I am grateful for the opportunity that she gave me to be a federal prosecutor, but also to have been able to sit in her expansive office and talk about classical ballet. I'll never forget that.
You wouldn't have thought that would've been a lot of discussion in the interview.
If one were to prepare for that interview, that would not have been part of the preparation. I better get up to speed on who's in the nutcracker or whatever. I was lucky enough to get hired. She had the funding to hire a lot of prosecutors, and I was at the very beginning and end of that and had a wonderful experience at the US Attorney's Office over eleven and a half years in two different stints.
That's a long time because usually, people are there for a few years.
I was there, then I left, and then I came back. It was two tenures which were great and a couple of different United States attorneys. I met friends that are close friends to this day. I met my husband there. You got to try cases, write appeals, argue in the Ninth Circuit, and involve yourself in the investigations that led to indictments. It was such a high level of practice that you couldn't go a day without thinking to yourself, “This is interesting.” For the most part, it is an office comprised of a group of highly self-motivated, curious, and smart lawyers.
It's a great group of people. Was your husband also a prosecutor?
He was. He was already at the US Attorney's Office. He's five years older than I am. He also went to Berkeley Law, but we did not overlap. He was there. I met him when I was new in the office. Several years later, we started dating and ultimately got married in 1999. We've been together ever since. We have two amazing children as a result of that union. I’m very lucky.
In the US Attorney's Office, there are many different things you can do. There are different subject areas and roles. Even when you are working on a case, you work it all the way through, which is neat.
I always say, “You handled a case from the cradle to the grave.” Frankly, if you knew, “I'm going to handle this appeal. I better make sure I get this right or that I stay within the bounds of what's allowed and closing argument.” It very much benefits anybody to be able to have that involvement in the life of a case because it forces you to invest in it. There are other prosecutorial agencies where the trial attorney does not handle the appeal, but the US Attorney's Office was not like that, and it was fulfilling.
I interviewed Elena Duarte who's on the Court of Appeal now but also was in the office. She has some pretty fond memories of that role as well.
We were appointed to the LA Superior Court the same day.
I figured you had overlapped, but I didn't think that way. That's amazing.
We went through the new judge orientation together. I saw her, and she seems to be doing very well.
I know you were also involved in the Inspector General's Office at the Police Commission. That's where we both might have the overlapping with Nicole Bershon as well.
All roads lead to Nicole Bershon.
Although we both went to UCLA, it started early for us.
As I said, I had two stints at the US Attorney's Office. Between them, I initially went in-house for the Boeing Company. I worked in their satellite systems unit in Southern California, which was totally interesting. A former colleague of mine from the US Attorney's Office was then the Inspector General for the Los Angeles Police Commission. This was the next phase after the Rampart scandal, the Christopher Commission, and all of that. There had been an Office of Inspector General that was formed as a result of all of those recommendations. It was a time when that office every year got a little bit more funding and bigger.
Jeff Eglash was in a position to hire not 1 but 2 assistant inspectors general. He called me and said, “Do you want to come and do this?” He was a supervisor of mine in the US Attorney's Office. The other assistant inspector general was André Birotte Jr. The three of us embarked upon trying to figure out what the role of the office of inspector general should be and how we fit in vis-a-vis the Police Commission, police chief, law enforcement, etc. It was an eye-opening job.
It's interesting because you're talking about strategizing across cases and investigations in the US Attorney's Office, but you're strategizing the whole role of the office and the different things that you were doing in the inspector general. That's a new challenge.
It was a time when the Inspector General, Jeff, and then ultimately, André became the Inspector General, was charged with expanding the resources and the reach of that office. Things are very different now than they were. This was in 1999 and 2000. That expanding the reach of the office that is there to respond in large part to citizen complaints about law enforcement and review officer-involved shootings aren't things that a police chief necessarily says, “Come on in. We will give you whatever you want.” It was a very interesting time and a window into law enforcement that I had not yet had the opportunity to have.
It was good you had the experience of the US Attorney's Office to bring to that but then to build on it some more.
Especially when you're a federal prosecutor, you work a lot with law enforcement agencies. I was in the narcotics unit. In addition to working with Federal law enforcement agencies, there were many task forces that I end up working with. I was familiar with local law enforcement agencies, which as you can well imagine, are very different than an agency like the DEA, for example. I think that did help.
You had that to bring to it. I know one thing that Nicole talked about on her podcast with me was how formative for her working in government service was that it led her to the bench. She thought she wouldn't have had as many amazing experiences and opportunities to grow in different ways from that service. It was an epiphany for her to have those roles. In your case, it sounds like you've had a lot of great opportunities from private practice and the government. You've learned a lot in each of those and brought one to the next role.
I'll tell you a funny story about Nicole Bershon, and then I'll address what you said. I've known Nicole for a very long time. The way that we met was Judge Arthur Alarcón and Judge Warren Ettinger undertook to get along with a lot of other people like Miriam Krinsky in the LA County Bar to have what used to be called the Criminal Courts Building renamed as the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center.
For reasons that I cannot recall, Nicole and I were lawyers on this committee to undertake to rename the building, which was a series of meetings at 7:30 in the morning. Now, 7:30 seems late to me. At the time, the hardest thing I ever did was get myself to those meetings at 7:30 in the morning. Ultimately, they had this big ceremony to open the building.
Sandra Day O'Connor came. Our job was to escort Sandra Day O'Connor from point A to point B. I don't remember what A or B was and if there was a C or an A and a half, but it was the most stressful undertaking to get in this van with the Supreme Court Justice and with all these secret service agents. To this day, we laugh like, “Why did they pick us to get in the van?” We were terrified like, “What if something happens to her? They're going to blame it on us.” We had the most fun, and to this day, she is a very close friend of mine.
Going back to your comment, I do think I have been very fortunate to have a breadth of experience in the law, big law, private practice, and a length of time in a government agency in-house in a Fortune 10 company. Also, for a period of time, in a very different type of government agency, because one government agency isn't like the next. It has benefited me greatly to have seen the way the law operates and the way businesses or organizations operate with very different goals and purposes.
Looking back, it's been amazing. Having served in an in-house capacity when I have had occasion to do a mandatory settlement conference, I absolutely understand what the in-house lawyer there is for. That is the person with settlement authority, but how high is the authority, etc.? I understand who during a trial in the courtroom is the client watching and what they're interested in. Whereas I don't think I would've had that insight had I not had that opportunity to work in-house.
I'm glad you said that because that's exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking all of those things together are valuable for your role now on the bench and serving as a judge in individual cases but also in terms of the organizational learnings that you had being in different government agencies, which are now running and managing the court system. That's a whole other set of challenges. All of those things work to your benefit being on the bench now. Having that broad experience or different experiences, I know there are a lot of discussions now about diversity on the bench in terms of practice experience prior to being on the bench as well, but you have a wide gamut to bring to it.
It's interesting because I was lucky enough to meet in person Secretary Luis Céspedes, who is the appointment secretary for Governor Newsom. He confirmed this. What we have seen with the past couple of governors is an emphasis on diversity and dynamism in what you have done as a lawyer. When I came on the bench, if you had been a prosecutor and you had done trials, you were very well placed in terms of being seriously considered for a judicial position.
That model has been blown up, and diversity is now a relative term. It means a lot of different things. One of those things to this governor it sounded like and to previous recent governors is diversity in what you have done as a lawyer is valued and that may be that you haven't tried any cases or jury trials. That's fine. Whereas before that would be disqualifying criteria.
It's funny the things I thought I knew about being an LA support superior court judge before I applied, but now that I'm on the other side of it, that makes sense. So much of what we do on this court, there is no right to a jury trial. Why would you have needed to try 50 jury trials or something, Family Law, juvenile justice, or probate? You’re not summoning a jury panel.
It's interesting because that was the perception earlier, especially in California in terms of the prosecutor to the bench in many cases. In talking to other judges around the country from different eras, it wasn't all cut and dried that way even previously when we thought it was. It's like, “People with different practice backgrounds became judges more than I would've thought.” I do think there's an increase and an expansion in that view. The most significant one that I see is a focus on an interest in having those who were public defenders join the bench because the other side of the V is having prosecutors on the bench. I've seen that across the country being something that governors and appointees are interested in exploring.
The most obvious example of that is our Supreme Court Justice appointment. I was having this conversation with two different people because, in the last election, 6 judges were elected and 2 of them were public defenders. In LA County, there had never been any public defenders elected to the bench.
They very much attributed their success to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. It's interesting for you to say that there are other parts of the country that are a little more forward-thinking in that regard, although California now I think is right there with them. To see that then extend to the electorate, that's different. I have many colleagues that come from a criminal defense background, and at the time, I was seeking an appointment. That was going to be a long shot. At least that's what we thought.
That would be like, “That's a tough one.” Tell me how you decided then, “I've had this varied career and I want to serve on the other side of things?”
It came down to being surrounded by women that had either been on the bench or had been appointed to the bench who had been assistant United States Attorneys. Exhibit A was Nora Manella. She had a long career as a lawyer, but then she was a state court judge when she got tapped for the US Attorney position then went on to become a district court judge, and then ultimately on the Court of Appeal. Bev O'Connell had been appointed. There's also Lisa Lench, Monica Bachner, Charlaine Olmedo, and Yvette Palazuelos. These were all women who not only were at the US Attorney's Office but more than half of the women I named, except for Charlaine, were in the narcotics unit.
These were people that I was around all the time and had helped me immensely in my career. In fact, at one point in time in the back hallway on the fourteenth floor, the offices were Bev, me, Monica, and Lisa, and then around the corner was Yvette Palazuelos. In my mind, I probably would've never thought about becoming a judge. That could be a reasonable expectation had I not seen these powerhouse women apply for and then be appointed. Among the things that women do to themselves that are not helpful is we're pretty quick to count ourselves out. I do that often. It was hard to do that when every time I turned around an office was dark because someone had been appointed to the bench, not just as someone but as a woman.
Schwarzenegger was the governor. His stated policies and what he was looking for in judicial candidates, I learned and thought, “With a straight face, I can ask to be considered.” There was a very different way of getting your application to move forward back then, but I credit the other women in the US Attorney's Office for modeling the fact that Governor Schwarzenegger was serious about appointing women to the bench.
That's one of my initial thoughts on doing the show. I've seen many amazing women become judges, either because they had your experience where they said, “I wouldn't have thought of that,” but I saw all these great women I admired doing that and put the thought that I could apply or somebody tapped them. A judge said, “You may not have considered it, but you should consider applying and encouraging someone.”
I felt like this could be the nudge for someone. If someone doesn't come up to you and do that in your jurisdiction, maybe listen to the stories of people who sound similar to your stories or there's something that resonates with you about their career trajectory or life story that might be that nudge for them to apply.
It's not often that we get somebody who is invested in our career and success. We get caught up in our own reality that it's hard to get that perspective. When someone identifies you or taps you on the shoulder and says, “This is something that you should think about,” or in my case, this group of women who all were appointed to the bench, it's easier to wrap your mind around, “Why wouldn't I try?” That's what it came down to.
When someone identifies your talents and encourages you to try something, it is much easier to wrap your mind around it.
It's good you did because you were successful.
It did work out right.
I'm wondering about the difference. You've started in your presiding judge duties, but you were assistant PJ. I'm wondering about that added layer on top of being a judge, what that looks like to you, what you're excited about in that role, and what kind of broader impact you can have on the court system from that perspective and that role.
It's interesting in the LA Superior Court because when you move into supervision, at least in some of the larger divisions, you don't have a docket anymore. I often jokingly say, but I do feel like this, “I haven't been a real judge in several years,” because I maintained my general civil icy court when I was the assistant supervising Judge of the civil division. When I moved into the role as the Supervising Judge of the Civil Division in Department 1, I no longer had a docket of cases.
It gets more attenuated. I was the assistant presiding judge for two years. Unless something horrible happens, I will be the presiding judge for two years, and you don't have a docket for that amount of time. My favorite thing to do as a judge is to preside over a trial. I love a jury trial. Court trials are fine, too, but as Judge Mary House went aptly stated, I steal this phrase from her all the time, “Judge has the best seat in the house. You watch and listen to the story unfold.” That is my favorite thing. That is when I am locked in terms of, “This is why I wanted to be a judge.”
Because I have sought the position that I'm in, I greatly enjoy the challenge of court administration and leadership. At the end of the day, I just love being a trial judge. What I do and have done in these leadership positions is different than the work that I had been doing up to that point in time for many years. At the end of these two years, I will be very excited to return to what I envisioned I would be doing when I applied to the bench.
The flip side of that is when you are in court leadership and court administration, especially when you have the privilege of leading the biggest court in the United States, maybe the world, you have a lot of opportunities to think expansively about the mission of the court, our judicial system, and the third branch of government because you have opportunities to influence and impact one's access to justice.
I was curious about that because I'm talking to the chief justices of state supreme courts, where they're both the head of the administrative body of the entire court system in the state, while at the same time, they're continuing to adjudicate appellate cases. That's all the juggling act, but that's one impact. I've heard people talking about that. I'm curious. At the trial court level, you're working within that geography in a way. How is that different? You haven't had that role. Maybe you don't know. How do you see that? The chief justice of the state supreme court sees it a certain way in that role.
I have not had that position and most likely never will. Our chief justice not only is the chief justice. She also is the head of the Judicial Council of California, which is the administrative body for our 58 Trial Court counties as well as all the appellate courts. That's a very different purview because we are 58 different counties, big and small. We have ten to-judge counties in California versus Los Angeles, 582.
One of the reasons that I feel like being the presiding judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court in particular provides an opportunity to influence and impact one's access to justice is due, in large part, to our size. We have the ability, reach, and resources to think expansively about what it means to have access to justice versus a to-judge county. At Los Angeles Superior Court, we have a tradition of thinking beyond the bounds of our county. We have very much a dedication to the improvement of the legal system, especially as a result of all the things that we have learned as a result of the pandemic, but we very much are dedicated to access to justice for all, not just in Los Angeles County.
We have a long history of supporting other courts in doing that and thinking beyond the county aligns to, “What's our mission? How can we help others achieve that mission? How can we support others? How can we support the Judicial Council?” We have much involvement on this court in the committee work of the Judicial Council, as well as judges who sit on the Judicial Council and have a supportive and symbiotic relationship with the entity whose purview is much broader because of the unique character and the size of California. That's a lot of words, philosophies, and theories. At the end of the day, because of the size and influence of our court, we are able to look beyond LA County and make a difference statewide.
I was thinking about that because I was thinking about your joy and first love being on the trial court presiding over jury trials. To give that up for a certain period of time, essentially, in this role, you have to think that there's some other good that you're contributing to and can impact in that time period because you're giving something up that you enjoy.
You hit on such an important subject because you can't take on this responsibility or there are other analogous responsibilities for something that is not dedicated to something larger than yourself. Do you have ambition for the sake of having ambition, or do you have ambition for the sake of trying to make a difference every day? I hope I fall into the latter category. We have all been members of organizations when you have people running organizations that fall into the former category.
Hopefully, voters willing, I will have a long career on the bench. The idea of not trying cases for what will end up being six years was easier to think about knowing I would come out of this position and still have a number of years left on the bench. You have to think about what it is you love about being a judge. What gets you up in the morning, excited to go and take the bench? It's different for every judge. A lot of that depends on their life or work experience.
I feel fortunate that I have been able to do what I love to do as a judge. Now, I am exercising a whole different set of muscles, which, at times, can be a little scary, but I think I have those muscles. I can work them out and use them. I am fortunate to have a supportive and engaged leadership team because you can't do this job by yourself. The beauty of doing it in Los Angeles is I don't have to do it by myself. We have an amazing staff. I have a great leadership team of judges. We can figure things out together.
Judges must have a supportive and engaged leadership team. Their job is not something they can do by themselves.
I was running a little later than I wanted to for this meeting because I was at an operations meeting. We have the greatest free exchange of ideas. This is interesting. It was in person we don't have a lot of in-person meetings. I felt like being physically in person in this room like we were connecting and firing on pistons that I haven't seen or heard in a while. That is a result of having an incredibly amazing senior executive team, a brand new CEO who's engaged and ready, and a very experienced group of supervising judges of the discipline. It's essentially six judges. SJ of criminal, civil, family, probate, juvenile, and appellate. Only one of those is a man. We were talking about other people that you should interview. I have some names for you from that group of women.
It's great when you have a good group to bounce ideas off each other and builds the energy toward what you want to accomplish.
We bounced a lot of ideas. I don't think we made decisions about very many of the items that were on the agenda, but that's okay. We have time to cogitate on what we talked about and think about the issues that were raised and hopefully, come to a point where we're more comfortable making a decision.
The point you said earlier about doing things for things beyond yourself for some kind of service or larger meaning, in my view, that's always what different governors and appointments have different specifics or things they might be looking for. The commonality to all of those who are interested in the bench is, “Do you have an interest outside yourself? Are you doing this for your own glory or something like that? Are you doing it because you have an interest in serving something larger than yourself? This is another way to do that.” That, to me, seems like there's a commonality across in the context of an appointment on what people are looking for.
That's Secretary Céspedes' challenge. Our obligation in terms of leaving this court is to provide an atmosphere and a court that supports the success of that judge, the success, satisfaction, and whatever challenges they're looking for of each judge on the court. A big part of my job is how we can maximize your experience as a judge, and the experience you bring to the bench, and then at the same time, meet and exceed our mission to provide fair and equal access to the judicial system.
It's the public's experience. It’s the judges’ experience. Do you hope by having engaged judges in the way that speaks the most to them is going to translate to a different experience for the public?
I've had super bad days on the bench. That's not good for the public. The question becomes, “Figure out why that day was bad. What happened? What was it?” What's happening for somebody on the bench shoes more often than it's not happening? I have an obligation to try to support that judge in succeeding as a judge.
That's what we talked about your experience in leading in different ways in larger organizations, US Attorney's Office, and the Inspector General's comes into play bringing that to bear in this role.
I've been lucky to have had leadership opportunities, which is interesting because if you think about it in your legal career times that you've been given an opportunity to lead, we are not an industry where someone says, “I want to have you go to a leadership development class.”
That's unusual. The only time you hear that is in-house because they're in a corporate environment.
If you are in a profit-making environment other than a law firm, that is something that's part and parcel of your development, but not in the law so much. When we were talking about law firms during that development of law firms to think more about what the business model is, you saw a lot of law firms that were hiring a business person to run the firm, rather than simply moving a lawyer into the managing partner role, or moving a lawyer into the managing partner role, and then pairing the managing partner with a business mind. That was the first manifestation, at least in my experience of, “Maybe as lawyers, we may not be the best at running the business because that's not what we went to school for.”
One of the things that I want to do during my tenure on the court is to create a leadership development curriculum within our court because people come to me, especially women, and they say, “How do you get to where you are? How can I be considered for leadership?” We need a little bit more focus on what those attributes are, what the strengths are, what people's weaknesses are, and how to overcome those weaknesses or augment them. It's a different conversation for lawyers.
It's not something we usually have. It's not that it couldn't be helpful.
Especially women, we don't tend to raise our hands or self-identify as leaders. We'd rather, “Just give me the work, and I'll do the work.”
When you were saying that, I was thinking, “There are a lot of people who step up to do the work but do not say, ‘I want to be the leader of X.’”
It's important to create work environments where everyone, women and people of color, feels confident that they will be taken and considered seriously if they say, “I would like to lead this litigation team.”
So much of that in the private practice often comes from the corporate clients who have that. It's the same kind of thing you were talking about earlier.
A lot of the pressure, at least what you've seen over the past decades or to diversify legal teams, comes from the clients.
I think about community service and serving on bar boards, as we have to, as an important training ground for leadership, but people don't always think of it that way.
We were talking earlier about generations. Our generation was probably on the tail end of it. I'm not sure that lawyers have a certain generation value bar involvement. That's a much larger conversation, but I do think that Bar Association is a wonderful way to involve lawyers, especially young lawyers in the work of the bar, legal community, and ultimately, in leadership. I always say, “If you can be a leader in a bar association where it's come one come to all different personalities and motives, you're good. You can do anything.”
It's good training for a lot of things. That's definitely what I've found. It's rewarding. I always think for newer lawyers, I'm like, “You need to get out of the hallway that you work in.” Bar service is that way. It is one way to do that. It also opens your eyes to a number of different practice areas. People you wouldn't otherwise meet in your community, I think of women lawyers of LA that way, it changed my experience and the practice of law in Los Angeles so much because there were women US attorneys, DAs, criminal, defense lawyers, county council, there many different roles. In my practice, I wouldn't have met them. It enriched my experience of what it means to practice law.
I worry a lot in terms of what the pandemic has done and the number of people that don't know how to practice law, except remotely. They have never had that sense of camaraderie that comes with going into a workplace. That's been deleterious on the bar population. We all got a little tired of bar meetings that we're on Zoom. Hopefully, we can find a way of living in the world that we do now where we can compensate for that lack of in-person connectivity but also create environments where people feel comfortable.
I hope, at some point, that is starting to recalibrate a little bit. Local bars, the bars that are geographically where you are, are making more of the foray into, “We're going to mix this up to being in person and to do other things that are bringing that camaraderie back.” We had our first judges’ night in Orange County for our bar board installation. There were 500 people there. It was starting to feel like it did when we last had it a few years ago. It is nice to have that getting together.
It feels a little, “Here we are with 500 people.”
It was gratifying to see people. We got to trade off this thing.
You've got to do what you feel comfortable doing.
Thank you so much for doing this. I enjoyed it. It's been interesting, especially talking about your role as presiding judge and all those things that go into that. That's different from serving as a trial judge without those administrative roles. To close out, usually I ask lightning-round questions. The first thing is, which talent would you like to have but don't?
I wish I could cook.
I did expand my recipe to things that I could cook easily, but it goes away. I like baking.
I wish I was one of those people that could taste something and say, “It needs a little of this.” I wish I had a basic fundamental understanding of how you make a vinaigrette or sauce.
That's the foundation that you could apply across.
It's one of my bucket lists for when I leave the bench.
Who are your favorite writers?
I am a huge fan of historical fiction. I was talking about this book with one of my colleagues. An example is All The Light We Cannot See, which I was mic drop of a historical fiction book. The Night And Gale was my genre. When I read it on an iPad, I can never remember the name of the book.
It flashes past. When you have the book, you're like, “I can see the cover.” On the iPad, you're like, “I don't know.”
It's called The Marriage Proposal, but it takes place in 1560 in Italy. I'm not deep into it, but that is my genre.
I was wondering if you had any time to read things, given everything that's going on, but I'm glad you're taking some time.
It's a great way for me to disconnect.
Who is your hero in real life?
The first thing that came to mind initially is my husband for who he is, what's important to him, and how he approaches the world. Definitely, it's my mother. I combined this with, “Who would you like to have dinner with?” because my answer to that is Michelle Obama. I listened to her book during the beginning days of the pandemic when I walked a lot. I felt like I had a new best friend. She was reading it. I'd go on these long walks. I felt like I was walking with Michelle Obama to the point where when I finished it, I was sobbing. She helped me because she published a new book. I need to get back into a walking schedule. I will once again renew my friendship with Michelle.
Isn't that amazing? There are some things that can touch you. There is that intimacy to hearing someone's voice and their story in your ears as you're walking and you resonate in a different way.
For women of color and women like me, I am fortunate to have some very close friends from a lot of walks of life. My solid friend group is from college, and we get together once a year. We've got a text group. Everybody all around the country doing different things. My mother has a similar very tight friend group from law school. It was six women who all graduated from Loyola Law School. They call themselves The Dirty Half-Dozen.
One of the reasons that Michelle Obama resonates with me is she, too, derives much confidence from women in her life and the friends that she has made throughout her life. You can well imagine being married to she's married to that it would be a very important source of strength because I assume he was busy for a long time.
You think about when you're in positions like that, isn't it nice to have people who have known you a long time before you were in that position, can talk straight to you and have that very honest, authentic relationship? It is valuable.
It's hugely valuable, authenticity, transparency, and feeling like there are environments in which you can be vulnerable without risk. I feel very fortunate to have those types of relationships in my life because as you get older, it's harder to make. I had a great blueprint through my mom, 1 or 2 of them. One of them is my godmother, and another one says she is.
An abundance of support, that's good. Last question, what is your motto if you have one?
I have a couple. One is it doesn't matter what you're doing. What matters is who you're doing it with, which is my way of saying to people, “Surround yourself with people that challenge and support you, and make whatever it is that you're doing interesting.” Some of the least interesting projects that I've worked on, as much as I told you a funny story about Nicole and John, it wasn't a lot that happened at the 7:30 monthly meetings that were super interesting. We had the greatest time doing it, as well as relationships that I forged with Arthur, Warren, and others. That's one of them.
Surround yourself with people that challenge and support you. This can make whatever it is you're doing more interesting.
Another one that I've been using a lot lately is that I'm going to fall flat on my face over the next few years. Not everything is going to go smoothly, but the measure of who I am as a leader is going to be how quickly I can pick myself up and figure out what to do next, and spend some time post-mortem on what it is that went wrong but not engage in finger-pointing. As quickly as possible, figuring out, “That's where we went off track. Let's do it differently this time.” I have found myself saying this, and I don't know what it means to women, “Shoulders back. Chin in the air. Walk forward.” It's this notion that we need to present ourselves in a way that exudes strength and confidence. That's not always easy for a lot of people.
That's like Amy Cuddy. You have to have the posture first then a little power poses there.
We're as close as I could come.
Those are all good admonitions at different points in time.
There's another one that I steal from my mother, which is what she always used to say. I'm 1 of 5 kids. She would say some derivation of, “It takes a lot more energy to be not nice than it does to be nice.”
That would be very helpful with five kids to say that.
I'm not sure if we practice that on a daily basis, although I have fabulous siblings. “Put a smile on your face. It takes no energy. It's no skin off your nose,” and she embodies that.
One my grandmother used to say, “You have to get happy in the same pants you got sad or mad in, whatever it is. Decide to change that perspective.”
For us, we would probably say, “I have more than one pair of pants.”
Probably things like that were where my parents said, “You might consider being a lawyer.”
What's one of your favorite mottos?
Somebody asked me this. They said they were going to turn around the lightning round questions to me for this show. After I did the show, I was like, “I'm sorry that I put you in this position to ask these questions because they're hard.” This will be easy, but distilling it down to certain things was hard. It's not easy. That's what I learned from having to answer. Thank you so much for joining. I enjoyed the conversation. I'm sure that people will learn quite a bit from your journey and your perspective. Your perspective on leadership is an important thing for people to know as you're entering this new role.
Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor. Your show is going to change the lives of many because it gives the readers, what I assume are mostly women, confidence, and context. Other people's stories are powerful, and they've been powerful to me. Thank you very much.
I'm glad I'm a conduit for this mission to highlight women like you who are doing amazing things, inspire others to continue to find their path of meaning in the law, and consider law school because there’s such a vast array of things you can do with Law degrees and make a difference. Thank you.