Brown, Janice Rogers (1949-)

The first African American woman to sit on the California Supreme Court was born in the small town of Laverne, Alabama, in 1949, the daughter of a sharecropper. Her father joined the U.S. Air Force and the family followed him to his duty station in California. She graduated from California State University, Sacramento, with a B.A. in 1974 and a J.D. in 1977 from the University of California, Los Angeles, Law School. She worked for the California Legislative Counsel's office for 2 years, the Attorney General's office for 8 years, and in private practice at the firm of Nielsen, Merksamer, Parrinello, Mueller & Naylor from 1989 to 1991. In 1991 she became Governor Pete Wilson's legal affairs secretary, and on November 4, 1994, she became ...