Name Leondra Kruger | ||
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Born July 28, 1976 (age 47) Los Angeles, California, U.S. ( 1976-07-28 ) Education | ||
Hon leondra kruger supreme court review
Leondra Reid Kruger (born July 28, 1976) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California, the court's second youngest appointee; and a former Obama administration official.
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Biography
Born in the Los Angeles area, Kruger grew up in South Pasadena, California and is the daughter of two pediatricians. She attended Polytechnic School in Pasadena, California. She then earned an A.B. degree magna cum laude from Harvard University, where she wrote for the Harvard Crimson, and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal. In the summer of 1999, she interned at the United States attorney's office in Los Angeles. In 2000, she worked as a summer associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson.
Kruger worked as an associate at the Jenner & Block law firm from 2001 until 2002. She then worked as a law clerk for Judge David Tatel on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2002 until 2003. Kruger then clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States from 2003 until 2004.
From 2004 until 2006, Kruger was an associate at WilmerHale's predecessor, Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr. She then was a visiting assistant professor in 2007 at the University of Chicago Law School.
From 2007 until 2013, Kruger was an assistant to the United States Solicitor General and the acting principal deputy solicitor general. She has argued 12 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2013, Kruger became a deputy assistant attorney general at the United States Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel.
On November 24, 2014, Governor Jerry Brown announced the appointment of Kruger to the California Supreme Court. She was confirmed on December 29, 2014, and replaced Associate Justice Joyce L. Kennard, who retired. She was sworn in on January 5, 2015, and became the court's second African American woman justice, following Janice Rogers Brown. At age 38, she was the youngest appointee to the court in recent years, and the second youngest appointee to the court ever, after Hugh C. Murray. Other, younger members of the court in the past were elected: David S. Terry at age 32; Erskine Mayo Ross at age 34; Terry W. Ward at age 37; and Van R. Paterson at age 38. In November 2015, Kruger delivered the annual Bernard E. Witkin lecture before the Los Angeles County Bar Association. Her opinions include Barry v. State Bar of California (2016), concerning subject matter jurisdiction and California's anti-SLAPP statute.