Video Interview Transcript: Justice Shirley Hufstedler [Shirley Hufstedler 6036.Doc] David Knight: You Have to Be Able to Get on Audio Level at the Same Time
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California Appellate Court Legacy Project – Video Interview Transcript: Justice Shirley Hufstedler [Shirley_Hufstedler_6036.doc] David Knight: You have to be able to get on audio level at the same time. Dennis Perluss: All right, it’s Dennis Perluss, P-E-R-L-U-S-S. David Knight: And your title? Dennis Perluss: I am the Presiding Justice of Division Seven of the Second Appellate District of the state Court of Appeal. David Knight: Excellent. All right. I’ll change my setting here. And Justice Hufstedler, we are ready anytime you are to give us your name; and spell your name and your title when on the bench. Shirley Hufstedler: Well, I’ll tell you my title on the state court system. My name is Shirley Hufstedler. I was a justice of the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Five. David Knight: Great. And how is your last name spelled, please? Shirley Hufstedler: H-U-F as in Frank, S-T-E-D-L-E-R. David Knight: Super. We are ready to go any time. Dennis Perluss: All right. We're here. It’s Tuesday afternoon, April 17, 2007, and this is part of the Appellate Court Legacy Project oral histories. The interview is of Shirley Hufstedler, who among other things was a justice of Division Five of the Second Appellate District. I was fortunate enough to be a law clerk for Judge Hufstedler when she was Judge Hufstedler on the Ninth Circuit and thereafter was her partner in the practice of law for a number of years. Why don't we start at the beginning, if we can, and have you tell me a little bit about your childhood growing up, where you were and the like? Shirley Hufstedler: Well, I was born in Denver, Colorado. My father and his partner owned one of the largest construction firms in Colorado; but when the Great Depression came around, there wasn’t enough work for a major construction company to be doing. So he and his partner bid on major projects all across the West. The net result was that I spent only one year, in the first grade, in the same state, let alone in the same school; we moved every year. So it gave me a good opportunity to see how other people were doing in other states. It always takes a period of adjustment, of course; but I found that I could adjust just fine and did. It also gave me an opportunity to learn how other people live in other communities, and I discovered something wonderful: I Transcribed by Tech-Synergy; proofread by Lisa Crystal Page 1 of 15 California Appellate Court Legacy Project – Video Interview Transcript: Justice Shirley Hufstedler [Shirley_Hufstedler_6036.doc] was never in anyplace at all which did not have a public library. So I got to stay in public libraries a lot, and of course I got to learn how to get along with all kinds of people, because it was necessary. I don't recommend it as a way of life, but I can say you do learn a lot. Dennis Perluss: Where did you graduate from high school? What state were you in at that point? Shirley Hufstedler: By that time I was in New Mexico, and I graduated from Albuquerque High School. Dennis Perluss: And did you go straight to college thereafter? Shirley Hufstedler: Yes, I did; I went to University of New Mexico, which was in the same community in which I lived, Albuquerque. Dennis Perluss: And graduated from there, I take it? Shirley Hufstedler: Yes, I graduated with a degree in business administration at the roaring old age of 19 years old. Dennis Perluss: I suspect you didn’t go straight to law school at that point. Shirley Hufstedler: No, I went to work in a motion-picture studio for a pair of movie stars, Paulette Goddard and Burgess Meredith, who were married to each other at the time. I got acquainted with Burgess because he was doing a film with Ernie Pyle and Ernie Pyle was a close friend of mine, though I got acquainted with Burgess Meredith in New Mexico when he was there visiting with Ernie. And he offered me a job if I was going to come to the West Coast. And I had other job offers through other people that I knew; but the plain truth of it was, they were going to pay me a great deal more money for being an executive secretary than anybody else who was going to hire me. I wanted to save the money to go to law school, so that’s what I did. Dennis Perluss: When did you start to think that you might like to go to law school or become a lawyer? Shirley Hufstedler: I was still an undergraduate. I took business-law courses and I did well at those and I thought they were entertaining, and the other options available to females at the time were underwhelming. Dennis Perluss: Did you know lawyers? Did you have lawyers in your family or among your good friends? Shirley Hufstedler: No. My father had a lawyer and I knew him very slightly, but I never knew any other lawyers. Transcribed by Tech-Synergy; proofread by Lisa Crystal Page 2 of 15 California Appellate Court Legacy Project – Video Interview Transcript: Justice Shirley Hufstedler [Shirley_Hufstedler_6036.doc] Dennis Perluss: How long a period was there between when you graduated from the University of New Mexico and started law school? Shirley Hufstedler: One year. Dennis Perluss: And you went to which law school at that point? Shirley Hufstedler: Stanford Law School. [00:05:00] Dennis Perluss: How big a class was your entry class? Shirley Hufstedler: That was the largest class ever graduated from Stanford, because it was the first class that entered after the Second World War. Almost every student there was a veteran, many of whom were on their final military leave when they entered law school; and I can't give you the numbers, but it was something like 200. They ran double sessions. Dennis Perluss: Yeah. So it was the fall of 1946? Shirley Hufstedler: Correct. And of course, that class was older than most classes are that go to law school, because the average age was 26 years old. Dennis Perluss: Approximately how many women were in the class? Shirley Hufstedler: It wasn’t approximate; there were exactly five of us in the first instance and three of them dropped out—not because they were academically disqualified, but they decided they didn’t like it. So there were two of us who graduated from Stanford Law School in 1949. Dennis Perluss: At that point in 1949 when you graduated, were there more women in the younger classes? Shirley Hufstedler: No. There were about the same number. Going to law school was not really on the menu of hopes for many young women at that time. Dennis Perluss: Were there difficulties that, at least in retrospect, you could attribute to being one of a very few number of women at the law school? Shirley Hufstedler: Yes, because at that time no law firm would hire a female. There were some law firms that hired a few women during the Second World War because the men were at war. None of those, as far as I am aware of, were ever made a partner in any of the law firms that hired them, and no one would hire me. The situation hadn’t changed a bit. Transcribed by Tech-Synergy; proofread by Lisa Crystal Page 3 of 15 California Appellate Court Legacy Project – Video Interview Transcript: Justice Shirley Hufstedler [Shirley_Hufstedler_6036.doc] Two years later, when Sandra Day O'Connor graduated from Stanford with about the same academic and other record that I had, nobody would hire her, either. She developed her own practice, and I developed mine. Dennis Perluss: Did you actually interview with any law firms, or would they not even— Shirley Hufstedler: They wouldn’t even invite me for an interview. Dennis Perluss: I know the answer to this question; but for purposes of history, how did you meet Seth and what is the story? Shirley Hufstedler: We were law-school classmates, and we were both officers of Volume I, Number 1, of the Stanford Law Review, and we also shared the same small office. Needless to say, we got acquainted, particularly because we found no way in which we could have any dating experience with each other until after midnight. So it was a rather unusual courtship. But we decided we got along just fine, and after we graduated from law school we got married in August of 1949. Dennis Perluss: You were going to law school in Northern California. How did you end up practicing in Los Angeles? Shirley Hufstedler: Well, I was interested in practicing in San Francisco, but I was not committed to it at all; but it just seemed to both of us there were far more opportunities for young lawyers in Los Angeles at that time than there were in San Francisco. So we moved to Los Angeles. He, by the way, had no difficulty getting a job. He was first in the class, and he was male. Dennis Perluss: What did you do to try to establish your own practice outside of the law-firm environment? Shirley Hufstedler: Well, in the first place, I had the names of some of the Stanford law graduates. One of them was a man by the name of J. E. Simpson, an excellent lawyer; and I interviewed with him and he just gave me some legal memoranda to do, and very shortly thereafter I graduated to doing briefs for him.