Stephen Reinhardt

Early life, education, and practice

Born to a Jewish family, Reinhardt graduated from University High School in Los Angeles. He enrolled in Pomona College and graduated three years later with a B.A. in Government in 1951. In 1954, he received an LL.B. from Yale Law School.

After law school, Reinhardt worked at the legal counsel's office for the United States Air Force as a lieutenant in Washington, D.C.. Two years later, he clerked for federal district judge Luther Youngdahl, a former governor of Minnesota, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He then entered private practice, working for the law firm O'Melveny & Myers from 1958 to 1959 practicing entertainment law. After two years at O'Melveny, he began working at a small firm in Los Angeles that became Fogel, Julber, Reinhardt, Rothschild & Feldman, specializing in labor law.

Reinhardt served as a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, California Advisory Committee from 1962 to 1974 and was its vice chairman from 1969 to 1974. He also served as member of the Democratic National Committee and as an unpaid advisor to former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley and California governor Jerry Brown. In 1975 he was appointed to the Los Angeles Police Commission, which he chaired from 1978 until his judicial confirmation in 1980.

Reinhardt continued his public service as Secretary of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Amateur Athletic Foundation.

Reinhardt administered the oath of office to former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on July 1, 2005.

Personal life

Reinhardt's mother divorced his father and married movie director Gottfried Reinhardt, the son of director Max Reinhardt. Stephen Reinhardt is married to Ramona Ripston, who was Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California until her February 2011 retirement. Reinhardt has three children.

Judicial career

Reinhardt is known as one of the most liberal judges on the courts of appeals. His decisions are "reversed more often than most" judges before the Supreme Court. In 2003, Reinhardt admitted that he "was a liberal from a very young age." "I think I was born that way", he said. However, he does not believe that a Supreme Court reversal means that his opinion is wrong or that he didn't follow the law. "The Supreme Court changes the law regularly. And this Supreme Court - which is the most activist Court there has ever been - is constantly changing the law. So if you really are faithful to the law, you're likely to get reversed because it [the Court] has cut back on rights." His reversal rate has not affected his status as a feeder judge—between 2009 and 2013, he placed six of his clerks on the Supreme Court, tied for the tenth highest number during the same time period.

Reinhardt's former clerk, Cornell law professor Michael Dorf said that when Reinhardt "believes himself clearly bound by Supreme Court precedent with which he disagrees, he states his disagreement but follows the precedent." Dorf accounts for Reinhardt's reversal rate by stating that "Reinhardt resolves cases under existing precedent as he believes those precedents should be read, without regard to whether five or more Justices of the Supreme Court are likely to reverse him."

Examples of opinions he wrote for the Ninth Circuit that were reversed are:

The following are some of his more notable judicial opinions:

Awards

Reinhardt has received the following awards: