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Profile: A Player On the Bench

A Player On the Bench

Judge Janet Kintner Has Presided Over Women’s Growing Influence in the Field of Law





BY RENE’E BEASLEY JONES

Staff Writer

few jaws dropped when Judge Janet Kintner first sat on the bench 26 years ago.

First of all, before Kintner, only two women judges presided over cases in San Diego County.

When Gov. Jerry Brown appointed Kintner to the bench, she was young , 31 at the time. And to top it all off, she was seven months pregnant with her first child.

“Janet was one of the pioneers here,” says retired attorney Betty Boone , a trailblazer in her own right who started a San Diego law career in 1965.

Kintner graduated from University of Arizona’s law school in 1968. According to the American Bar Association, only 3,554 women attended law schools nationwide that year, out of a total enrollment of 62,779 students.

Boone says women made up only 3 percent of the nation’s bar at the time. She estimates 30 out of 600 San Diego County attorneys were female, mostly in private practices.

“Men were perplexed,” Boone says. “They didn’t know what to do with us.”

The profession routinely shunned women. For instance, a San Diego district attorney official told Kintner he wouldn’t consider her for a job solely based on her gender.

“Word got out that public agencies wouldn’t hire women and private firms weren’t hiring women,” she says of the local legal market.

Kintner dug in her heels.

“There were five kids in my family , four girls,” she said. “My parents never told us we couldn’t do anything.”

She landed her first job at Legal Aid in San Diego, where she represented low-income residents in consumer fraud cases. After a couple of years, she took a year to travel across Europe.

The San Diego city attorney’s office contacted her when she returned. Kintner joined the city’s legal team, doing criminal and civil work before starting a consumer fraud unit.

She later entered private practice. In 1976, less than a decade after graduating from law school, Kintner received an appointment to the bench.

She has ruled on local civil and criminal cases during her tenure. Kintner now works on criminal cases.

Judge’s Chambers

Cindy Davis, who works as an attorney for the city of San Diego, likes to try cases in Kintner’s courtroom. Before joining the city team, Davis practiced at Luce Forward Hamilton & Scripps in San Diego.

“(Kintner) knows the law, and she follows the law. She’s very straightforward. You never walk in guessing,” Davis says.

The first time Davis entered Kintner’s chambers, a penciled sketch that hangs above the judge’s right shoulder impressed Davis. It depicts a woman in different stages of life , law student, fledgling attorney, lawyer-mother and judge.

Although the drawing resembles Kintner, it’s not her. A Sacramento attorney, Terry Flanigan, drew the images using a different model.

Davis enjoys Kintner’s courtroom because it’s well run, and Davis says the judge has a great demeanor with jurors.

That’s one of Kintner’s favorite parts of the job. She likes felony jury trials.

“I really do like this work. Every day is a treat,” she says.

Every case is different. And the stories behind them are more fascinating than books or TV.

Kintner learns from expert testimony, and she gets to make a difference in people’s lives.

One time she gave probation to a heroin addict who had a lengthy record. He now writes her a letter of sobriety each year. He’s been off heroin for 13 years.

“He’s now a contributing member of society,” Kintner says.

She tries to think of alternatives to slapping people behind bars. She has mandated counseling and sent people to Alcoholics Anonymous sessions. She has made others perform volunteer service or earn GEDs to improve their lives.

Fair, Friendly

Margaret Maund has acted as Kintner’s Superior Court clerk since 1995.

“She’s very fair,” Maund says of Kintner’s rulings.

The judge is kind but serious. She likes the courtroom to run on time. She’s observant and efficient, Maund says.

She describes Kintner as a devoted mother of three , two adult sons and a 17-year-old daughter , who likes Padres games and all types of sporting events.

Kintner dedicates part of her free time to raising money for juvenile diabetes.

The judge thinks best when she walks along the beach, Maund says.

For a while, Kintner wrote articles for a regional law magazine, Dicta, in 1976. She started the Lawyers Club newsletter, a publication she still contributes to today.

She was elected to the San Diego County Bar Association board of directors in the early 1970s.

In 1979, she was among California women judges who started the National Association of Women Judges, spawning a worldwide organization.

Colleagues and friends say Kintner is an easygoing, fun-loving sort.

Work runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Then, she often takes reading home. “There’s so much new law to keep up on.”

Kintner owns a cat named Cat. When Kintner’s 17-year-old daughter balked at the less-than-original name, it changed to Catalya , nicknamed Cat.

Kintner enjoys listening to music and playing piano. She used to paint before starting a family, and hopes to return to that hobby some day.

Reading is a favorite pastime.

“Someday I’ll write a book. It will be fiction and humorous. I owe the world a book because I’ve enjoyed everyone else’s for so long,” Kintner says.

She credits a college debate team with leading her to a career in law. One of her fellow debate team members , now U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. , told Kintner she could debate for a living.

When she asked how, he told her to become a lawyer. Kintner followed his advice.

There were only two or three women out of up to 80 students in her first law class.

At the beginning of class, the professor extended a less-than-cordial welcome to them. He asked one of the female students to define sodomy.

Kintner was relieved he didn’t choose her.

Making Headway

During the 1960s, two popular San Diego restaurants , the Grant Grill and the old University Club , shut out women.

Even a decade later, county officials treated female lawyers differently. For instance, women attorneys weren’t allowed to wear pants to court.

According to a column Kintner recently wrote for Lawyers Club News, one female attorney was refused access to the courtroom because she wore pants. She went into a bathroom, ditched the lower part of her outfit and came back to court wearing just a jacket.

The judge heard the case, Kintner says.

Attitudes changed slowly.

Artie Henderson earned a seat on the San Diego Superior Court bench in 1978. Until that time, women sat on the municipal bench.

No women occupied the local federal bench until 1980. The California Supreme Court didn’t include any women until 1977, when Rose Bird was appointed as Chief Justice. No women sat on the U.S. Supreme Court until 1981.

Today, it’s not uncommon for Kintner to preside over a trial that involves two female attorneys. Sometimes, a female bailiff will round out an all-woman team.

And the ABA reports that about half the students in law schools today are women. ABA statistics show that nearly 30 percent of all lawyers today are female.

Still, there’s room for improvement, Kintner says. A woman has not yet served as district attorney or U.S. attorney in San Diego County.

And there are still too few women acting as senior partners in firms, she says.

It wasn’t easy elbowing her way into a male-dominated profession during the 1960s, Kintner says.

“My female peers from those years have agreed with me on how unpleasant it was to be turned down for jobs just because we were women and to suffer from other experiences of that time,” she wrote in a recent column.

“But we also agree that if our being pioneers saved our daughters and the other women who came after us from the same experiences, it was worth it.”


SNAPSHOT: Janet Kintner

Title: Judge, San Diego Superior Court

Education: Bachelor’s degree in government and minor in history from University of Arizona; J.D. from University of Arizona

Birthplace: Ohio

Recreation: Reading, listening to music, Padres games, traveling, writing

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