Janice Rogers Brown J.D. ’77

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Janice Rogers Brown J.D. '77 currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a position to which she was confirmed in June 2005.

Justice Brown has devoted her career almost entirely to public service, taking on greater and greater levels of responsibility and having ever-widening influence over public policy and legal issues affecting all of the people in California.

Prior to her appointment to the California Supreme Court in 1996, she was an associate justice of the State of California Court of Appeals. From 1991 to 1994, she served as legal affairs secretary to Gov. Pete Wilson. Her office monitored all significant state litigation and had general responsibility for acting as legal liaison between the governor's office and the executive departments.

She performed the heavy duties of her office with unfailing fidelity and Wilson wrote in his letter to UCLA's nominating committee, “she often told me what I did not wish to hear.”

While a deputy in the attorney general's office, she chose to become involved in tutoring inner-city children. She participated in the Center for Youth Citizenship, presiding over an annual moot court competition attended by high school students in Sacramento. While on Wilson's staff, she served on the commission of the status of African-American males. Brown has dedicated herself to the advancement of higher education as a member of the governing boards of Pepperdine University and the University of the Pacific.

Her personal triumph is an American success story, which celebrates the value of higher education in fulfilling the great promise of America to its citizens. The professional training she received at the UCLA School of Law has permitted her, even now when decades remain to further enhance her career, to have already a profound and revitalizing impact upon the integrity of American jurisprudence.

Despite her incredible intellect, work ethic, determination and resultant accomplishments, she remains humble and approachable.

Updated Oct. 28, 2005