A Conversation With California Supreme Court Justice Martin J. Jenkins

• Jurisdiction: California,United States
• Author: Edited by Paul Moore
• Publication year: 2022
• Citation: Vol. 32 No. 1

A CONVERSATION WITH CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT JUSTICE MARTIN J. JENKINS

Edited by Paul Moore¹

INTERVIEWERS:

• Elizabeth Pritzker, Pritzker Levine LLP
• LeeAnna Bowman-Carpio, J.D. Candidate, May 2022, U.C. Hastings College of the Law
• Paul Moore, California Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General

I. INTRODUCTION & OVERVIEW

In November 2020, Justice Jenkins was confirmed as the newest Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California.

Born and raised in the Ingleside neighborhood in San Francisco, Justice Jenkins grew up in a family that prioritized hard work and community. His family moved to San Francisco to escape the Jim Crow South. Comfortable here, his parents dedicated their lives to their family and city. His mother was a nurse and his father was a custodian at Coit Tower. His father's dedication to his job and the people he supported instilled in Justice Jenkins the desire to dedicate his life to public service.

Justice Jenkins came of age in San Francisco during the '60s and '70s, where he had a "bird's eye view" of the change and upheaval occurring around the Bay Area. From protests against the Vietnam War, to the Free Love movement, to the strikes that rocked San Francisco State University, the young Jenkins witnessed institutions being toppled as a younger generation started to find its voice—much of it in his hometown. He absorbed everything occurring around him and felt that supporting his community would be how he could most effectively serve and give back.

Justice Jenkins earned an Associate of Arts degree from the City College of San Francisco and then enrolled at Santa Clara University, where he majored in history. While at Santa Clara, he excelled academically and athletically, serving as a team captain of the university's football team. He originally planned to be a professional football player for a few years, and then teach high school history or coach football. After a debilitating injury in a preseason game during his first year as a free agent, he left the NFL and enrolled at the University of San Francisco School of Law, determined to use law as a vehicle for a life in public service. He

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studied law and learned how it could be a tool to accomplish change and make an impact in the lives of others. He worked hard and received the Judge Harold J. Haley Award for his "exceptional distinction in scholarship, character, and activities."

Through the entirety of his substantial career, Justice Jenkins has maintained a deeply rooted community spirit and dedication to justice. As a mentor and a role model, he has touched innumerable lives. From helping to coach his high school's football team while he was in law school to creating "fireside" chats with Judge Sandra Armstrong for USF law students from underserved communities, Justice Jenkins has prioritized giving back to the communities that played foundational roles in his life. In recognition of these admirable attributes, the USF Board of Trustees conferred upon Justice Jenkins an honorary degree: The Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters Honoris Causa. He received the annual St. Thomas More Award from the St. Thomas More Society of San Francisco for his "distinguished record of service and dedication to his family, his church and his community." And for his constant advocacy for youths, he received the Children's Advocacy Award, presented by Legal Services for Children, San Francisco.

We are deeply fortunate for Justice Jenkins' decision to dedicate his life to public service and, as you will see, to apply his considerable intellectual talents to making California a more just and inclusive place to live.

* **

MS. PRITZKER: I am the past Chair of the Antitrust and UCL Section of the California Lawyers Association. It is our great honor to have with us today California Supreme Court Justice Martin J. Jenkins.

In November 2020, Justice Jenkins was confirmed as the newest Associate Justice of the State's highest court. Behind his formidable legal career is a lifetime of community service and a passion for helping others flourish. A true champion of justice and integrity, he has never lost sight of the importance of living a life of authenticity.

Justice Jenkins was born in San Francisco and raised in the Ingleside district. He grew up in a family that prioritized hard work and community. After moving to San Francisco from the Jim Crow South, his parents dedicated themselves to their family and the city that became their home. Justice Jenkins' father was a custodian at the San Francisco landmark Coit Tower for over 40 years. His mother worked as a trained nurse.

Justice Jenkins attended Santa Clara University, where he majored in history. While at Santa Clara, he excelled academically and athletically, serving as a team captain of the university's football team. After college, Justice Jenkins briefly played professional football for the Seattle Seahawks. The rivalry was between the Raiders and Seahawks in those days—both were AFC teams.

While playing professional football obviously had its merits, Justice Jenkins wanted to continue his education and find a career that would allow him to give back to his community. He left the NFL and enrolled at USF law school, determined to use law as a vehicle for a life in public service.

Justice Jenkins began his legal career as prosecutor in the Alameda County DA's office and subsequently as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, Criminal Section, in Washington, D.C. While at DOJ he traveled the country, handling police misconduct and racial violence cases.

In 1986 Justice Jenkins returned to the Bay Area to support his ill mother and worked as an in-house attorney at Pacific Bell.

From there he took his first step down the long path of his judicial career, taking up residence as a young judge in the rough and tumble of Oakland's municipal court. He was then appointed by Governor Pete Wilson to the Alameda County

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Superior Court where he served as presiding judge of the juvenile division.

In 1997 he was nominated by President Clinton to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where, among other notable assignments, he presided over the Dukes v. Walmart² class action, which many in our audience are of course familiar with. At the time of certification, Dukes was the largest sex-based discrimination class action in the country.

Justice Jenkins also coauthored the Jenkins-Laporte Doctrine. This oft-cited doctrine provides an innovative three-part analysis that clarifies the parties' respective burdens in copyright cases involving contractual licensing of digital works. It continues as a mainstay of federal jurisprudence.

After a decade on the federal bench, in 2008 Justice Jenkins was nominated and confirmed as an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal for the First District in San Francisco.

In 2019 he was tapped to serve as Governor Newsom's Judicial Appointment Secretary, advising the Governor on all state court judicial appointments. During his tenure, Justice Jenkins worked closely with the Governor, appointing 45 jurists from a diverse array of backgrounds.

In 2020, Governor Newsom nominated Justice Jenkins to the California Supreme Court to fill a position vacated upon Justice Ming William Chin's retirement. At the time of his confirmation, Justice Jenkins was the first African-American man to serve on the California Supreme Court in 30 years, one of the only three to have ever served, and the first openly gay justice to serve on California's highest court. In their nomination report, the members of the JNE Commission praised Justice Jenkins, emphasizing that his humility, lifelong commitment to public service, and passion for justice make him a most deserving and worthy addition to the State's highest court. You will witness some of that passion here today. He's shared it—a lot of it—in our preparation for this session.

We are thrilled beyond measure to have Justice Jenkins here in conversation with us this morning.

Today's presentation will be an informal conversational format. Sharing the interviewer role with me today are Paul Moore and LeeAnna Bowman-Carpio.

Paul Moore is a Deputy Attorney General for the Antitrust Law Section of the Office of the California Attorney General, where he participates in a variety of merger and conduct investigations, as well as enforcement actions.

LeeAnna Bowman-Carpio is a third-year student at Hastings College of the Law, and now serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Hastings Law Journal. LeeAnna is the Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law Section's inaugural Inclusion and Diversity Fellow. As part of that fellowship, she spent her 2L summer at the California DOJ with the Competition Unit of the Healthcare Rights & Access Section.

Our first question to the Justice comes from LeeAnna.

MS. BOWMAN-CARPIO: Thank you again, Justice Jenkins, for being here.

JUSTICE JENKINS: Pleasure.

MS. BOWMAN-CARPIO: And for giving this opportunity to us.

So we have a number of judges and antitrust attorneys who were born and raised in San Francisco. Would you like to describe for the audience what the experience of growing up in San Francisco was like for you?

JUSTICE JENKINS: Sure, I'd be happy to do so, and let me start by thanking all of you for the opportunity to be in conversation with you here today.

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If the prep session that we had is any indication, it's going to be a marvelous conversation and there will be contributions made by everybody here in the room, and I hope some of you in the audience as well.

San Francisco was a magical place. That's the best term I could use to describe it, to grow up here. I came of age, graduated from high school in the early '70s here, and it was a time of quite a bit of tumult in our society. There was the Vietnam War and the protests against that. There was sort of an unrest in society about institutions; banking institutions, the establishment, per se; and there was a...