A Judge's Tale : A Trailblazer Fights for Her Place on the Bench

For fans of The Good Wife and Suits, the true story of a passionately principled young female judge in the man’s world of the ’60s and ’70s who is forced to defend her judgeship against two male challengers in a grueling election—while pregnant with her second child.

Janet Kintner could have ended up just another victim of the system. Abused as a child, sexually assaulted as a young woman, the odds were not in her favor—but instead of letting these experiences destroy her, she used them as fuel in pursuit of her dreams. By twenty-four, she was a newly minted lawyer determined to secure justice for everyone, regardless of their gender, race, religion, or income.

In 1968, the District Attorney’s office told Kintner, “We will not hire a woman lawyer.” Men dominated the legal system. Undaunted, she established herself as a lawyer who represented low-income people and, eventually, as a high-profile prosecutor specializing in consumer fraud. San Diego lawyers elected her the third woman ever to the County Bar Association Board of Directors. In her private practice, she continued to help everyone she could, often pro bono.

In 1976, when Kintner was thirty-one and pregnant, Governor Jerry Brown appointed her the third female judge in history in San Diego—a move that didn’t sit well with some men in her field. Two years later, two men challenged Kintner, a mother pregnant with her second baby, in the nastiest judicial election of the year. In the coming months, Kintner struggled to balance her time between her children, working full-time in a stressful job, and campaigning. She didn’t want to let other women, present and future, down. But was San Diego ready to elect a female judge?