Portions of this story originally appeared in Berkeleyside and were republished with permission.
Joseph Grodin, a legal scholar, labor lawyer and former California Supreme Court justice whose early experiences with antisemitism helped shape his worldview, died on April 6 in Oakland. He was 94.
Grodin, known to friends and family as Joe, was born in Oakland in 1930 to Jewish immigrants and lived his early years in Piedmont. He attended Sunday school at Temple Sinai in Oakland, where his father served as president. He told family members that he experienced “pervasive antisemitism” throughout his school years, which made him sensitive to how it feels to be an outsider.
As a senior at Piedmont High School, Grodin became involved in the Western States Jewish Youth Conference, which enabled him to attend Brandeis Camp in Southern California. It was an experience he described as “formative” in a 2004 interview with oral historian Leah McGarrigle, “because it was an atmosphere in which everybody else was Jewish, and being Jewish was a great thing, and being identified with Israel was a great thing.”
“I came out of that really totally changed,” he recalled.
After graduating from Piedmont High in 1948, Grodin earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley and a law degree from Yale. He also earned a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics as a recipient of a Fulbright grant.
Grodin met his wife, Janet, when they were children. The two married in 1952. Then in 1967, they settled in Berkeley, where they raised their daughters, Sharon and Lisa. Grodin served in leadership roles at Congregation Beth El in Berkeley, according to his daughter Sharon. He and Janet later joined Kehilla Community Synagogue where they remained active members until their deaths.
Grodin practiced labor law for 17 years in San Francisco representing unions, first as a member and later as a partner at the firm headed by Mathew Tobriner.
He taught labor law at UC Law San Francisco, known at the time as UC Hastings. In the 1960s, Grodin worked on minority voting rights in the South and represented UC Berkeley student protesters.
He was involved in the public-policy advocacy group American Jewish Congress, through which he worked on local projects including drafting a fair housing ordinance for the city of San Francisco. He was also active in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War and supported Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 presidential campaign, where he met then-campaign volunteer Jerry Brown.
Brown, elected California governor in 1974, appointed Grodin to the newly created Agricultural Labor Relations Board in 1975, overseeing collective bargaining rights for farmworkers. Grodin was later elevated to the California Court of Appeal in 1979 and, in 1982, to the California Supreme Court.
As a Supreme Court justice, Grodin was a “brilliant jurist” who “exemplified a dedication to justice, fairness and the rule of law,” according to now-Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, who released a statement after Grodin’s passing.
Grodin was ousted in 1986 after becoming a target of a conservative campaign that accused him, Chief Justice Rose Bird and Justice Cruz Reynoso of being soft on crime, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Grodin returned to academia with enthusiasm, where he remained a formidable voice in legal education for decades.
“He was still intellectually sharp, always insightful,” longtime friend and colleague Mark Aaronson told the San Francisco Chronicle. “The epitome of a mensch.”
Later in life, Grodin became outspoken in his opposition to the death penalty. Last year, Grodin supported a lawsuit in the state Supreme Court arguing that California’s death penalty law is irredeemably racist and should be overturned.
Outside the courtroom and classroom, Grodin was a nature lover. He hiked, camped and often went off-grid with family and friends.
He and Janet were married for 72 years before she passed away in July 2024. Following her death, Grodin moved to St. Paul’s Towers, a senior residence in Oakland near Lake Merritt. There, he launched a speaker series shortly before a fall in January precipitated a steep decline in his health.
Still, Grodin’s passion for knowledge and civic engagement endured. Days before his final hospitalization, he stood from his wheelchair to introduce the first guest speaker in the speaker series he had organized.
In addition to his daughters, Grodin is survived by grandchildren Anya Rome, Evan Cohen and Michael Cohen. His brothers, Clifford and Richard, preceded him in death.