A prominent former classmate and professors at the UC Davis School of Law predict that Tani Cantil-Sakauye, a 1984 law school alumna nominated to be the next chief justice of the California Supreme Court, would bring an even hand and mainstream legal views to the job.

Cantil-Sakauye, 50, would become the first Asian American to lead the court and would give the court its first female majority. Gov. Schwarzenegger nominated the state appellate court judge on July 21 to succeed Chief Justice Ronald George, who is retiring.

“I thought she was a great, great choice and I told the governor that,” said state Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, who was one of Cantil-Sakauye’s law school classmates at UC Davis and also graduated in 1984. Steinberg, from Sacramento, is a Democrat. Like Schwarzenegger, Cantil-Sakauye is a Republican.

Steinberg: 'Well suited' for the position

“It is, of course, a job where you help decide the most important cases coming before the entire state,” Steinberg said, “but it’s also a political and administrative job, and I think she is more than well suited for it because she’s just very good at understanding people and where they’re coming from.”

Vikram Amar, a UC Davis law professor and associate dean for Academic Affairs, seconded Steinberg’s assessment.

“She seems very good with people,” Amar said. “You don’t hear anybody complain about how she plays with others, and that’s a particularly important trait for the chief to have, not just because the chief runs the court, but also because the chief is the liaison to the Legislature and really to the public at large.”

Cantil-Sakauye, who earned her undergraduate degree in rhetoric at UC Davis in 1980, would bring a combined 20 years of judicial experience to the state’s highest court. Before joining the 3rd District Court of Appeal six years ago (as a Schwarzenegger nominee) Cantil-Sakauye served as a Sacramento County Superior Court judge from 1997 to 2004 and a Sacramento County Municipal Court judge from 1990 to 1997. Earlier, she served in then-Gov. Deukmejian’s administration and as a Sacramento County deputy district attorney.

In addition to participating in rulings on cases that come before the Supreme Court, Cantil-Sakauye would oversee a statewide judiciary that includes more than 1,700 judges, several hundred other judicial officers, 21,000 court employees and a budget of roughly $4 billion.

Independent thinker, well qualified

From the opinions that she has written, Amar said, Cantil-Sakauye appears “independent minded” and unafraid to render difficult decisions, such as the reversal of criminal convictions in one case, when the law required it.

Likewise, UC Davis School of Law Dean Kevin Johnson said Cantil-Sakauye is “clearly in the judicial mainstream.”

“She is an independent thinker,” Johnson said. “She’s a thoughtful person and she listens. She’s a humble person and I think her work reflects careful craftsmanship. She takes the law seriously. It’s not a game to be played.”

Said Amar: “She’s been a judge for 20 years – that’s a long time – even though she’s only 50. Certainly she’s well qualified. She’s got a good sense of the kinds of issues that come to the California Supreme Court and she knows what the challenges are that face the lower courts.”

But judges ultimately are defined by unforeseeable events and cases that unfold before them, Amar said.

“You pick a judge in part because of what they’ve done in the past,” he said. “But they define themselves going forward based on things we can’t predict. It’s hard to know what the defining issues in the next 20 years are going to be.”

No stranger to the law school

While she may not have been well known outside the legal community before her nomination, Cantil-Sakauye has been no stranger around the law school. She works with aspiring law students in the King Hall Outreach Program, which prepares first-generation college students and others from disadvantaged backgrounds for law school.

She also has spent time with first-year students in the law school’s writing program. For the Outreach Program, she and her appellate court colleagues critiqued students on their presentation of mock arguments to the justices.

“Most of these students have never had any real interaction with a lawyer,” said Cristina Gapasin, associate director of admissions and outreach at the law school. “So, to even be in a judge’s presence and to get that much time and feedback in a real courtroom, in a court of appeals … it’s very motivating. I think it makes them realize, regardless of my circumstances, I can do this.”

Cantil-Sakauye’s nomination is headed to the three-member state Commission on Judicial Appointments, which is scheduled to consider her nomination on Aug. 25. If confirmed there, her name would go on the general election ballot Nov. 2 for a vote of the people.

Earlier coverage: "Alumna tapped as chief justice — Cantil-Sakauye would set precedents for California Supreme Court" (July 23, 2010)