Developed in 2006 as part of the previous year’s Centennial of the California Courts of Appeal commemoration, the project features more than 150 interviews posted on the California Appellate Court Legacy Project’s webpage. Through in-depth recorded video interviews, state appellate court justices recount their childhoods, career pathways, public service experience, notable opinions, and other events that have helped shape their perspectives.

(Subscription required) California’s Supreme Court will decide whether to create a new, non-licensed class of legal aides now that state bar leaders have endorsed a plan to launch a community justice workers program. The idea, as proposed by legal aid groups, is to tap trusted figures in communities—a religious leader or a health care professional, for instance—and train them to provide basic help that might otherwise run afoul of laws designed to prevent the unlicensed practice of law.

(Subscription required) Joyce Kennard, a judicial trailblazer who was one of the longest-serving members of California’s Supreme Court, died on Aug. 26, the Judicial Council announced. She was 85 years old. Kennard was just the second woman and the first justice of Asian descent to serve on the state’s high court when Gov. George Deukmejian appointed her in 1989. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a package of 13 election security bills aimed at protecting the state's voting systems, expanding voter access and preventing interference with the election process ahead of the November midterm elections.