(Subscription required) Park presides over dissolution, parentage, custody, support and restraining-order matters at Van Nuys Courthouse. The people appearing before her are often navigating some of the most difficult periods of their lives. "There's always two sides," she said. "The truth is somewhere in the middle."

(Subscription required) A federal judge in California on Tuesday issued a nationwide ban on Trump administration policies that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents cited in arresting immigrants going to and from hearings at immigration courthouses. U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of California’s Northern District also vacated a policy that extended the time immigration authorities can hold detainees in temporary lockups from 12 hours to 72 hours.

California officials may not enforce key provisions of a law protecting transgender students from forced outing against the parents challenging it while their lawsuit proceeds, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

(Subscription required) Justice Joan K. Irion believed courts belonged not only to judges and lawyers, but to the public they served. Over more than two decades on the 4th District Court of Appeal, Division One, Irion became known as a rigorous appellate jurist, a probing questioner and one of California's most active advocates for civic education, judicial independence, and access to justice.