State judges recount career paths and share advice
By Lori Craig
It is not entirely coincidence that the three judges who spoke recently to USC Gould students followed similar career paths to the bench.
Each of the judges — California Court of Appeals Justice Nora Manella ’75, San Diego Superior Court Judge Joan Weber and Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Valerie Salkin ’92 — clerked or externed with a judge, practiced law with a firm or worked in politics, and was a criminal prosecutor prior to donning the robe.
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| Judges Joan Weber, Nora Manella '75 and Valerie Salkin '92 |
And each of those professional experiences helped them build the skills needed to be effective judges, they said.
“I would agree that there is no better job for a graduating law student [than a clerkship],” said Manella, who clerked for U.S. Appeals Court Judge John Minor Wisdom in New Orleans. “It is impossible to overstate the value of a clerkship, on any number of levels … just that experience of working with a seasoned judge, not to mention friendships with your cohorts.”
Weber, a 1981 graduate of the University of Arizona, also clerked, working for Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit John Clifford Wallace.
“In that one-year period, I literally wrote opinions on every area of law imaginable: immigration law, criminal law, anti-trust, patent litigation — everything was covered,” she said. “I got to see all kinds of amazing lawyers. I was right in the federal building so I watched a lot of trials and a lot of Assistant U.S. Attorneys.”
Following her clerkship, Weber went into private practice with a large firm in Phoenix for a few years, doing commercial, securities and antitrust litigation.
Manella also spent several years in private practice with O’Melveny and Myers following a stint in Washington, D.C., as legal counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution.
Salkin, meanwhile, started her legal career in D.C. as legislative liaison and legal counsel, having externed with a federal judge and clerked with the federal public defender’s office in Chicago during law school.
“It was interesting for a period of time, and I did really like the political connections I made — and those connections helped me decades later when I was trying to become a judge,” said Salkin. “But I really wanted to be in a courtroom. I missed the hubbub.”
She joined the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, where she spent 13 years and completed more than 100 jury trials, 100 juvenile adjudications, and four years with the Hard Core Gang Division prosecuting gang homicides.
“You get substantial trial and courtroom experience and you will automatically be taken seriously if you are trying to become a judge because you have been in the courtroom every day,” Salkin said.
Manella and Weber also racked up years of experience in the courtroom, Manella as assistant and later U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California in Los Angeles and Weber as assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California in San Diego.
“I did 25 jury trials, I argued 19 cases before the Ninth Circuit — which means I wrote those briefs, I argued those cases myself, I made important law in the Ninth Circuit on very interesting issues,” Weber said.
Weber and Manella both were nominated to the bench within a month or two of each other in 1990, while Salkin ran for her spot in the 2010 election. She won in the primary and took the bench in January 2011. While extolling the rewards of the job, the judges each said their desire for a healthier work-life balance led them away from the life of a prosecutor.
“[As a gang prosecutor], the issues are intense,” Salkin said. “You have very legitimate and very real concerns about your witnesses being killed, being threatened. If you’re serious about it and you work hard — which I did — it can be very all-consuming.”
The hours are intense, as well, the women said, pointing to 50- to 80-hour work weeks, late night and long weekends spent preparing for trial.
“Now, I do feel that I am blessed with the greatest job in the legal profession,” Weber said. “If you love the drama of the courtroom — I live it, every day. … The law gives you the opportunity to impact your community, and as a Superior Court judge I do impact my community in a lot of very profound ways, I do a lot of educating students, speaking engagements out in the community on topics like domestic violence, gang violence, drinking and driving, so I have to say it’s been quite a memorable career.”
Speaking to students at the invitation of the USC Women’s Law Association, the judges responded to questions about the “next frontier” in women’s rights. The consensus: strides have been made, but more progress is needed.
“We’re back on the same issues we fought, ladies, back in 1950, 1960,” Weber said, referencing reproductive rights, keeping Planned Parenthood open and defending Roe v. Wade. “Take up the battle.”
Manella said she was concerned about the lack of women rising to the top of private law firms.
“A woman can succeed in a law firm up to a certain level by being very good and reasoning and writing, but law firms … are profit-making centers and it matters whether you bring in business,” she said. “And I would say there aren’t a tremendous number of women role models at that.”
The judges also discussed pay equity, maternity leave — which the state enacted for female judges just this past year — and the necessary trade-off between raising children and working the hours expected of a lawyer or prosecutor.
“For all our warnings and counsel … go out there and throw yourselves at whatever you do, and you know, if you hate it, do something else,” Manella said. “You should start your legal career with a sense of adventure, with a sense that, ‘I’m young, I’m smart, I’m energetic, I have succeeded at most things I have tried and I’m going to pick something that interests me, challenges me, and I expect it to be hard.’”
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