Cordell delves into cases she presided over-from juvenile court to estate battles to divorce proceedings to criminal sentencing to judicial misconduct-where the issues are still relevant today.
Due out in the fall, Her Honor: My Life on the Bench…What Works, What’s Broken, and How to Change It… richly details her 1982 appointment to what was then known as the Municipal Court and then, in 1988, her election to the Superior Court, following a contentious race. Now, Cordell has written a candid and incisive memoir about her 19 years as a judge in Santa Clara County. She came back to campus in 2001 with her appointment as vice provost and special counselor to the president for campus relations, overseeing diversity and anti-discrimination measures across the university until 2009. As Stanford Law School’s assistant dean for student affairs from 1978 until 1982, she enrolled more Black and Hispanic students than any top law school in the country, according to a Stanford News Service report. She was the architect of the first law school clinical program on judging.
She pioneered a highly acclaimed supervised visitation program in child custody cases that has since been adopted around the country.
She was the first judge in the state to order convicted drunk drivers to install breathalyzers in their vehicles. In 1982, Cordell broke ground when she became the first female Black judge in Northern California state court. LaDoris Cordell, JD ’74, became the first female Black judge in Northern California in 1982 “Best decision I think I ever made,” says Henderson, who later became a key figure in civil rights cases as a federal judge based in San Francisco.įor Cordell, JD ’74, it was the beginning of many firsts in a remarkable-and, at times, controversial-47-year career as a private lawyer, judge, independent police auditor, city council member, civil rights consultant, and LGBT rights advocate. To Henderson’s knowledge, Stanford Law School had never accepted a student without a traditional college transcript. Her liberal arts school, Antioch College in Ohio, didn’t issue letter grades-only teacher evaluations. The year was 1971 and admitting her would mean overlooking a key Stanford requirement. A career in law, she wrote, would enable her to fight injustices. Her great-grandmother had been a slave her mother didn’t have a birth certificate because Black mothers were barred from hospital maternity wards. Twenty years old and a drama major, LaDoris Cordell was a self-taught visual artist, karate expert, skilled tennis player, and accomplished composer. S omething about the applicant intrigued Thelton Henderson, then the assistant dean at Stanford Law School charged with recruiting minority students.