The Recorder has At 'Appellate Project' Launch Event, Veteran Judges Tout Value of Diversity -- The webinar, billed as the Appellate Project's "virtual launch," featured judges speaking from remote locations about their own paths to state and federal appellate bench and the role diversity and multiculturalism play a role in their work.
“Our court always makes a better decision when there are differing points of view at the table,” Associate Justice Mary Yu of the Washington Supreme Court said during the webcast, organized by The Appellate Project, a fledgling organization created to encourage more minority law students to pursue a career in appellate law
Thursday’s event also featured Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Associate Justice Leondra Kruger of the California Supreme Court. The names of both judges have been mentioned in legal circles as possible future U.S. Supreme Court nominees in a Democratic administration, with Kruger receiving particular focus
Kruger is the daughter of pediatricians. Her mother emigrated from Jamaica and her father’s parents were Jewish immigrants who came to the United Statess from Eastern Europe. Kruger, appointed to California’s high court at just 38 years old in 2014, is the only African American on the high court bench. In 2016, she became the first Supreme Court justice to give birth while in office.
“The colleagues that I serve with are one of the most personally and professionally diverse groups of lawyers that I’ve ever had the privilege of serving with,” Kruger said. “We come from all different walks of life, with all different experiences as lawyers before we joined the bench.” She continued: “In many ways that is just precisely what a multi-member appellate court should be. It should be a decisional body that is informed by having many voices at the table and not just a few.”
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