The 11th Annual Ronald M. George Distinguished Lecture
The eleventh George lecture paired a half-century milestone with a Ninth Circuit judge who began her career as a Golden Gate graduate.
The Chief Justice Ronald M. George Distinguished Lecture Series has become a fixture in California legal life, and its eleventh installment, convened in early 2020 at Golden Gate University School of Law, arrived at a moment of unusual weight: it coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the law review that grew up alongside the school. Named for the jurist who served as California’s twenty-seventh Chief Justice from 1996 to 2011, the series exists to put working judges in front of students and practitioners to talk plainly about how courts function. The eleventh lecture continued that pattern by featuring the Honorable Morgan Christen, a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit who earned her law degree at Golden Gate in 1986.
Who Ronald M. George was, and why a series carries his name
Ronald M. George was born in 1940 and came to the California Supreme Court by way of the trial bench, having presided over the Los Angeles Superior Court — including the Hillside Strangler prosecution — before his elevation through the Court of Appeal and, in 1991, to the state’s highest court. He was appointed Chief Justice in 1996 and led the court for fifteen years. To the public he is most readily associated with a single opinion, but to the bench and bar his longer legacy lies in the administration of justice: the consolidation of California’s trial courts, the push for plain-language jury instructions, and a sustained effort to improve physical and procedural access to the courts for self-represented litigants.
The opinion most often attached to his name is In re Marriage Cases, the 4–3 decision he authored in 2008 holding that the California Constitution’s guarantees of liberty and equal protection extended the right to marry to same-sex couples. The opinion treated sexual orientation as a suspect classification subject to strict scrutiny under the state charter, and it reached back to the court’s 1948 decision in Perez v. Sharp, which had struck down California’s ban on interracial marriage, as a doctrinal anchor. A series named for George therefore carries an implicit subject: how a state high court reasons its way to a controversial result, and how an institution absorbs the aftermath.
What a distinguished judicial lecture is for
Endowed lecture series in law serve a function that ordinary classroom instruction cannot. They give a sitting or retired judge license to speak in the first person about the craft — how a panel reaches consensus, how an appellate court manages a heavy docket, what separates a persuasive brief from a forgettable one — without the formality of a written opinion. The George series has followed that template, drawing speakers from the California Supreme Court and the federal appellate bench to discuss matters ranging from veterans in the judiciary to the mechanics of decision-making. The value is partly cultural: a law student rarely hears a federal appellate judge describe candidly how an opinion is negotiated among colleagues.
That the eleventh lecture featured a Golden Gate graduate who reached the Ninth Circuit was not incidental. It let the series make a quiet argument about access to the profession: that a regional law school’s degree can lead to the federal appellate bench. For an audience of current students, the message is more durable than any single point of doctrine.
Morgan Christen and the path she illustrates
Morgan Christen received her J.D. from Golden Gate University School of Law in 1986, having earned the school’s awards in constitutional law and in evidence. She built her early career in private practice in Anchorage before her appointment to the Alaska Superior Court in 2002, where she later served as presiding judge. In 2009 she joined the Alaska Supreme Court, and in 2011 President Obama nominated her to the Ninth Circuit; the Senate confirmed her by a vote of 95–3 that December. Her trajectory — state trial court, state supreme court, federal court of appeals — is a conventional but instructive one, and it places her squarely within the kind of career arc the George series tends to spotlight.
The Ninth Circuit she joined hears appeals from nine western states and is the largest of the federal circuits by caseload. A judge on that court spends far less time on marquee constitutional questions than the public imagines and far more on immigration, criminal sentencing, administrative review, and the procedural questions that govern whether a case is even properly before the court. A lecture from such a judge is most useful when it conveys that texture rather than the headline cases.
The doctrinal threads that connect a George lecture to current questions
Although the series is framed around the judiciary as an institution, its subject matter inevitably brushes against live constitutional law. The equal-protection reasoning at the center of George’s marriage opinion did not end with that decision; it was substantially overtaken by the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, which placed the federal floor above the state-by-state patchwork. The relationship between state constitutional guarantees and their federal counterparts — when a state charter offers broader protection, and what survives when federal doctrine shifts — remains an unsettled and recurring problem, and it is exactly the sort of question a judge is freer to discuss in a lecture than in an opinion.
Other strands the courts were actively confronting around this period reach the same audience. Questions of surveillance and digital privacy under the Fourth Amendment, the boundaries of tenant and landlord rights under newly enacted state housing law, and the treatment of incarcerated people pressed into hazardous public service all turned on how courts read constitutional text against modern facts. Readers tracing those threads may find the analysis in this publication’s coverage of geofence warrants and the Fourth Amendment and of incarcerated firefighters in California a useful companion to the institutional themes a George lecture raises. The broader run of commentary on these developments is collected in the publication’s commentary section.
What the eleventh lecture suggests going forward
A lecture series of this kind is, in the end, an exercise in institutional memory. By tying the eleventh installment to a half-century milestone and to an alumna who reached the federal appellate bench, the event reinforced a simple proposition: that the legitimacy of courts depends as much on the people who explain them as on the opinions they issue. The questions that animated George’s tenure — how a court reasons under public scrutiny, how it widens access to justice, how state and federal protections fit together — have not closed. If the series continues to draw judges willing to speak candidly about that work, its usefulness will outlast any single anniversary.
Questions readers ask
What is the Chief Justice Ronald M. George Distinguished Lecture Series?
It is an annual lecture hosted by Golden Gate University School of Law that brings sitting and retired judges to speak about the work of the courts. It is named for Ronald M. George, who served as Chief Justice of California from 1996 to 2011.
Who spoke at the eleventh annual lecture?
The eleventh installment, held in early 2020, featured the Honorable Morgan Christen, a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit who earned her law degree at Golden Gate University in 1986.
Why was the eleventh lecture notable?
It coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the school’s law review, and it featured an alumna who had risen to the federal appellate bench, which underscored a theme about access to the legal profession.
Who was Ronald M. George?
He was the twenty-seventh Chief Justice of California, serving from 1996 to 2011. Before that he sat on the Los Angeles Superior Court, the Court of Appeal, and the California Supreme Court as an associate justice.
What is Ronald M. George best known for?
He is most often associated with In re Marriage Cases (2008), the 4–3 decision he authored holding that the California Constitution extended the right to marry to same-sex couples. He is also remembered for reforms to court administration and access to justice.
Did the marriage decision he wrote remain the controlling law?
Its California holding was overtaken in practical effect by the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which recognized a nationwide right to marriage. The state-law equal-protection reasoning, however, remains part of California’s constitutional record.
Who is Morgan Christen?
She is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Before her 2011 confirmation she served on the Alaska Superior Court and then the Alaska Supreme Court, having begun her career in private practice in Anchorage.
What does the Ninth Circuit do?
It is the federal court of appeals for nine western states and is the largest federal circuit by caseload. Its docket is dominated by immigration, criminal, and administrative appeals rather than the high-profile constitutional cases that draw public attention.
Who sponsors the lecture series?
The series has been supported by the law firm Winston & Strawn, with the lecture hosted at Golden Gate University School of Law.
How does a judicial lecture differ from a published opinion?
A lecture allows a judge to speak candidly and in the first person about how courts actually function — how panels reach consensus, how dockets are managed, and what makes advocacy effective — in a way that the formal constraints of a written opinion do not permit.
This publication offers commentary and analysis on developments in the courts; it does not provide legal advice.
