Announcing the New Editor-in-Chief of California Legal History
The California Supreme Court Historical Society is pleased to announce the identity of the new editor-in-chief of its scholarly journal, California Legal History.
In last year’s California Legal History, our current editor-in-chief, Justice George Nicholson, wrote, “I look forward to my final year as editor-in-chief, in 2025. My successor will be a distinguished scholar who now works for UC Law-Berkeley. His identity will soon be announced.”
Justice Nicholson produced three extraordinary volumes of the California Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual publication. We have been so fortunate that he loaned us his time, talent and intellect for those years.
As he predicted, his successor is indeed a distinguished scholar: David A.Carrillo, the Executive Director of the California Constitution Center, and a Berkeley Law Lecturer in Residence. David is a leading scholar on the state’s constitution and the California Supreme Court. He will, no doubt, produce equally interesting volumes of California Legal History and we hope you will look forward to reading them.
If you wish to know more about David A. Carrillo, you can find a recent episode of “Voices Carry,” a podcast that featured him, here: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/voices-carry-podcast-david-carrillo-california-constitution-center/
Selma Moidel Smith
1919-2025
The California Supreme Court Historical Society notes with great sadness the passing of our director emerita, Selma Moidel Smith, at the age of 106 on Friday, July 25, after a brief illness.
Selma served on the Society’s board for more than twenty years. Among many other things, she simultaneously acted as editor of our semiannual newsletter (now the Review), and our annual journal, California Legal History. She continued to edit the journal and to help edit the Review until she reached the age of 103.
Retired Justice Kathryn Werdegar put it succinctly: Selma was “at the heart of the Society’s many endeavors.”
But Selma’s contributions go well beyond her work for the Society.
Selma was admitted to the bar in January 1943. (Her bar number was 18,051.) And within just five years, she was addressing an international conference of lawyers at the Hague on the topic of legal education. Throughout her long career she was an active member of many organizations, earning numerous honors, awards and accolades.
Yet that was only part of what Selma did. She was an accomplished musician, composer and singer. Her works were performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. When she was a political science major at UCLA in the late 1930s, she was a “pom pom girl,” and when she returned as a music major in the 1960s, she sang with the University Chorus. She was a bilingual docent who taught music to school children on behalf of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. And she was a flamenco dancer.
Indeed, her life was so active, so varied, and so accomplished that no obituary can describe Selma in full. The best we can do is to republish here and here Justice Werdegar’s warm tributes to the woman we were privileged to call our colleague and friend and to provide a link to the website that her son lovingly created for Selma. https://www.selmamoidelsmith.net/about-selma
A celebration of Selma’s life will take place in the Spring at the next annual Selma Moidel Smith Recital at the UCLA School of Music. Details will be announced.
The 2024 Student Writing Competition
The 2024 Student Writing Competition Announcement
The California Supreme Court Historical Society is pleased to announce the Winners of the 2024 Student Writing Competition in California Legal History.
1st: “Guess Who’s Coming to Stanford? The Battle for Desegregation of an Elite Law School.” Gabrielle Braxton
2nd: “The Codification of Independent Living.” Douglas Sangster
3rd: “Justice Denied and Forgotten: The Hidden History of Alaska’s World War II Internment Camps.” Caroline Lester
The 2023 Student Writing Competition
The 2023 Student Writing Competition Announcement
The California Supreme Court Historical Society is pleased to announce the winners of the 2023 CSCHS Selma Moidel Smith Student Writing Competition in California Legal History.
1st: “The End of Free Land: The Commodification of Suscol Ranch and the Liberalization of American Colonial Policy.” Kyle DeLand
2nd: “California’s Constitutional University: Private Property, Public Power, and the Constitutional Corporation, 1868-1900.” Michael Banerjee
3rd: “A Shameful Legacy: Tracing the Japanese American Experience of Police Violence and Racism from the Late 19th Century Through the Aftermath of World War II.” Miranda Tafoya
Honorable Mention: “White v. Kwock Sue Lum: Chinese Adoption and U.S. Immigration Law in the Exclusion Era.” Michael Callahan, Josh Fuhrman, Alex Heffner, Grace Hwang, Henry McGannon, Abby Morris, Emma Peddrick, Maddux Reece, Christopher Sosnik and Jackson Warmack
The 2022 Student Writing Competition
2022 Student Writing Competition Announcement.
The California Supreme Court Historical Society is pleased to announce the winners of the 2022 CSCHS Selma Moidel Smith Student Writing Competition in California Legal History.
1st: “More than Moratoriums: The Obstacles to Abolishing California’s Death Penalty.” Leah Haberman
The 2021 Student Writing Competition
The California Supreme Court Historical Society is pleased to announce the 2021 Student Writing Competition Winners.
2nd: “Getting to Tarasoff: A Gender-Based History of Tort Law Doctrine.” Brook Tylka
The 2020 Student Writing Competition
The California Supreme Court Historical Society is pleased to announce the 2020 Student Writing Competition Winners
1st: “Ronald Reagan v. CRLA: Politics, Power, and Poverty Law” Taylor Cozzens
2nd: “Breaking California’s Cycle of Juvenile Transfer” Gus Tupper
Constitutional Governance and Judicial Power: The History of the California Supreme Court
The Society’s long-awaited Constitutional Governance and Judicial Power: The History of the California Supreme Court is now available for purchase. Edited by Harry N. Scheiber, this publication covers the Court’s history from 1849 through the George Court in 2010.
The 2019 Student Writing Competition
The California Supreme Court Historical Society is pleased to announce the 2019 Student Writing Competition Winners.
The first place winning article was“Right of Publicity in the Era of Celebrity: A Conceptual Exploration of the California Right of Publicity, as Expanded in White v. Samsung Electonics, in Today’s World of Celebrity Glorification and Imitation” by Sarah Alberstein
The second place winning article was “The Right of Free Speech in Privately Owned Premises: Following up with the Robins v. Pruneyard Judgment” by Parthabi Kanungo
The 2018 Student Writing Competition
The California Supreme Court Historical Society is pleased to announce the 2018 Student Writing Competition Winner. The winning article was “How a California Settler Unsettled the Proslavery Legislature of Antebellum Louisiana” by Alexandra Havrylyshyn.
The 2017 Student Writing Competition
The California Supreme Court Historical Society is pleased to announce the 2017 Student Writing Competition Winner. The winning article was California’s No-Duty Law and Its Negative Implications by Michaela Goldstein.
Selma Moidel Smith Oral History
CSCHS Board member Selma Moidel Smith has been interviewed for the American Bar Association’s Women Trailblazers in the Law Oral History project. She is one of approximately 100 women lawyers nationwide included in the project.
Chief: The Quest for Justice in California
This important new book chronicles the life and career of former Chief Justice Ronald George. The book is based on an extensive series of oral history interviews conducted by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley and funded by the Society.
California Legal History is the annual journal of CSCHS providing scholarly articles and oral histories of prominent figures of the bench and bar of California. To preview the contents of our latest issue, please see below:
