Supremes in Berkeley: Almost as Wacky as You'd Expect

Justice Joyce Kennard: Oops, I'm a lawyer.

Justice Joyce Kennard gave a life lesson. Ming Chin campaigned for retention. And UC-Berkeley School of Law Dean Christopher Edley Jr. essentially called Chief Justice Ronald George a judicial Methuselah.

All these fun and games took place Tuesday when the California Supreme Court showed up in Berzerkely to hold oral arguments there for the first time ever.

It was the ninth year that the court held an outreach session for students and, as usual, students lined up to ask stiff, pre-approved questions.

Lawyer zingers! Old-guy zingers! Vote early and often! After the jump ...

Kennard, a self-made woman who’s suffered many hardships in her years (including time as a child in a Japanese-run prison camp), told the students she went to law school not to be a lawyer but to go into public administration.

But upon graduation, Kennard said, there was no work in her chosen profession. “I was desperate for a job,” she told the kids. “Any job, even as a lawyer.”

“Things obviously didn’t go as planned,” she deadpanned to chuckles.

Chin, who along with George and Justice Carlos Moreno, faces a retention election next year, was asked whether he felt Supreme Court justices should have life tenure, as do federal judges.

“The short answer is ‘Yes,’” Chin said emphatically. “But we live in the real world.”

He then took the opportunity to rally some votes for himself and his companions during the 2010 elections.

“When you see the names Chin, George and Moreno,” he said, “please vote yes.” More laughs ensued.

Edley offered George one of the oddest welcomes of all time. He lauded the chief, who’s been on some court bench or another for 37 years, for his longevity.

“I think he was appointed by the king of Spain,” Edley quipped. “He’s been on a bench longer than most people in this room have been alive.”

Is that praise?

— Mike McKee