A CONVERSATION WITH CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT JUSTICE JOSHUA P. GROBAN

By Cheryl Lee Johnson and Courtney A. Palko¹

For the seventh consecutive year, we have been privileged to have a Justice of the California Supreme Court address our members. We welcomed Joshua P. Groban at the 2020 Golden State Institute. He shared with us his major life influences, his path to the California Supreme Court, his judicial philosophy, and his sports allegiances. The panel was presented in a question-and-answer format. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation.

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

It is our great honor to have with us today California Supreme Court Justice Joshua Groban, the most recent appointee to the Court. Justice Groban has had a remarkable career dedicated to legal excellence and public service. A southern California native, he was raised in Del Mar, California, where he attended public schools. His parents both led lives in public service; his father is a physician and professor at UC San Diego and VA hospitals and his mother is a retired social worker and former member of the Del Mar City Council.

Justice Groban received a BA with honors and distinction from Stanford in modern thought and literature, and then received his JD cum laude from Harvard Law School. Following law school, Justice Groban clerked for the Honorable William C. Conner of the Southern District of New York. He then spent six years in private practice in New York at Paul Weiss, where he was lead counsel on the firm’s largest pro bono case at the time.

MS. CHERYL JOHNSON:

Justice Groban then moved to Los Angeles where he practiced at Munger, Tolles & Olson for five years. There he specialized in complex litigation with a focus on antitrust, intellectual property, and internal investigations. His career took a turn, some would say a semi-seismic turn, when he took a leave of absence from Munger Tolles to serve as legal counsel to Jerry Brown’s campaign for California governor in 2010. After Brown’s election, Justice Groban served as a senior advisor in his administration, overseeing state judicial appointments and advising the governor on litigation and policy. In this role, he screened and interviewed more than a thousand candidates for judicial office. He oversaw the appointment of over 600 state judges, or approximately one out of every three judges in the state.

In 2018, Governor Brown appointed Justice Groban to the California Supreme Court to fill the seat vacated by retiring Justice Werdegar. He was sworn into office in January 2019. Justice Groban and his wife, Deborah, have two young children and he claims the Southland as his home.

[Page 28]

So, with that briefest of background, we’re going to turn to our questions for Justice Groban. Courtney, can you start?

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

Thank you for joining us today, Justice Groban. Let’s jump right in and talk about your early career. What influenced you to decide to pursue a career in law, and was this a career path that your parents approved or encouraged?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Thank you, Courtney, and first, let me say thanks so much for having me; I’m delighted to be with you all. I wish we could be in person but maybe next year. And as somebody who practiced in this field in a prior life, I’m particularly delighted to be here.

I think I knew I wanted to be a lawyer from a pretty early age. I’m not quite sure how I got that in my head other than the robust discussions that would break out at the dinner table. We were a family that ate dinner together every night and for a good chunk of my childhood, the three homes of my grandparents, my own family and my aunt and uncle and cousins were all in walking distance of one another. So at the dinner table, there was a lot of discussion amongst physician, social worker, lawyer, and political science professor, and the discussions were robust and I think that put me on my way, so to speak.

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

That’s interesting. You practiced in private law for over a decade. Why did you choose private practice and what part of it did you enjoy the most?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

I wish I could say it was part of some grand strategy about the trajectory of my career but in retrospect, I was 25, 26 years old and most of my colleagues were going off to private practice and I thought I would do the same. Part of what motivated me was I had taken a one-year clerkship in New York, and the year whizzed by and I wanted to stay. And several of my friends from law school were thriving at Paul Weiss and I joined them, much to my delight. But I confess, it was not part of any grand scheme.

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

Given that you enjoyed some aspects of private practice and had some friends there with you, what prompted you to leave to join Jerry Brown’s campaign? And Governor Brown is generally known for running a lean team; what was life like for you on the campaign trail?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Yes, lean is right. Once again, it would probably be more correct and proper of me to describe my career as some great, grand plan but, again, a good deal of serendipity is involved. I was happily litigating at Munger Tolles and knew that one of my colleagues was friendly with the Browns; I popped in his office one day and said I’d be delighted to have an introduction and give them a little bit of pro bono assistance on what was then a very early 2010 gubernatorial campaign. What I did not appreciate, and as your question suggests, is I thought I would be joining a massive campaign team and just working on the outskirts. What I didn’t appreciate is that when I joined the "team", the team was Anne Brown [Jerry Brown’s] wife, two interns, and a dog. As a consequence, the number of things I was being asked to do increased, increased, increased and increased, and ultimately, the firm allowed me to take a leave of absence to serve as general counsel to the campaign. And as they say, one thing led to another and here I am many years later.

[Page 29]

MS. CHERYL JOHNSON:

So, you were nominated by Governor Brown to replace Justice Werdegar. Did you ever aspire to be a judge before your work with Governor Brown?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

You keep giving me opportunities to say that my career has been carefully plotted out and, in candor, I keep having to say otherwise. I suppose on some level, for every lawyer, the thought crosses his or her mind. But it was not something that was at the forefront of my mind by any stretch of the imagination. And indeed, as I was conducting, as you said, over 1,000 interviews for judicial appointments for Governor Brown, I was always surprised there was an occasional candidate who would say to me, "I knew since law school that my goal was to be a judge." That always surprised me, in part because the thought really was never forefront in my own mind. But I was interested in the law, I had appeared plenty in court, and I had a sense of what a good judge looked like and what a not-so-good judge looked like. And so, when there was an opportunity to help with judicial appointments, I jumped at that. And then over the course of eight years of thinking every day about what it is like to be a judge, and what it is like to be a good judge, then of course, the thought percolated in my mind, but again, it was a process, not a grand strategy.

MS. CHERYL JOHNSON:

Since you’ve had such a large imprint on our state judiciary, we would like to discuss your approach to judicial appointments. The California judiciary is twice the size of the federal judiciary. I think that is a statistic that many of us don’t really appreciate; no nation has as many judges as California has and you were responsible for the appointment of almost one-third of the judges during your service with Brown. I know you said you identified what you thought were good and bad judges; can you tell us what traits you thought made for a good and bad judge, and how you sought to change the ways that judges were identified, approved, and assigned from what previous governors had done?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Yes, a couple of things. I think Governor Brown’s vision was really to find excellent lawyers who would make excellent judges but to do that wherever he might find them. And by that, I mean I think there was a notion in prior administrations of a certain [ judicial] prototype of a trial lawyer, often a prosecutor, or if they were in civil practice, a particular kind of commercial litigator, and not so much of those who were public defenders or family law lawyers or people doing arbitration or academics. I think the approach that Governor Brown took was that we want really accomplished lawyers at the top of their field wherever we might find them. He was less concerned, for example, about whether they had primarily a family law practice. If you call the presiding judge of a superior court, particularly a larger one like Los Angeles and San Francisco, and said, "How would you like a new judge who is a certified family law specialist, who is beloved in the field, who has been doing this for 30 years, has incredible judgment, is very smart, but hasn’t done—pick one, civil or criminal," they are delighted to have a person like that. They’ve got to field all the assignments and they just want good people, full stop. And so, I think that is the approach that Governor Brown took, and I think it put our judiciary in better stead in terms of the kinds of traits and characteristics important for doing the job.

[Page 30]

It is a view that evolved for me over time, but of some of the characteristics we looked at, temperament was always of incredible import. I quickly learned nobody’s ego went down once we put a robe on them. If there was a sense of narcissism or a haughty demeanor, that that was not going to improve on the bench and was always a red flag. Also, pure candlepower, pure smarts, was incredibly important; it is an easier job to do if you can get up to speed quickly, no doubt.

The other things we cared about was a level of decisiveness. That was always interesting because people tend to view judging as the need to be decisive, full stop. I tended to learn that that is not the whole story; that really what was happening was you needed people who actually could be very open, good listeners, and willing to hear all points of view, and then be decisive, as all of you know in practice. Nobody wants a judge who has made up her mind before you have walked in the door and just describes that as being decisive.

Empathy is an incredibly important trait, emotional IQ, particularly at the trial court level. These are such difficult assignments, such emotional assignments; the ability in a family court or dependency court, particularly heavily pro per dockets, to understand emotions, to understand how nervous people are, to understand how terrifying it is for people to walk into a courtroom, even on a traffic infraction, those were some of the things we cared about. And I’m sure others can add to the list but those were the primary things we were thinking about.

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

That’s interesting. And now that you’re on the bench, has your view of what makes a good judge changed at all?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Probably when I started, I would have ranked just sort of pure intellectual firepower as first on the list. Now having done it for a while—and this is particularly true of the trial courts but I think is also true at the appellate level—I think pure smarts is now down to about third or fourth on the list. Some of the other traits I described, the ability to both listen and be decisive, emotional IQ, pure work ethic, general temperament, are also important. And again, since this is a group of participants who are in courtrooms all the time, having a judge who is really smart but doesn’t have any of those other characteristics is not—by and large, a judge that any of us really wants to appear in front of. And I knew that on some level, but have come to appreciate that more. That said, smart sure helps; it beats the alternative. It matters, too, but it matters in conjunction with these other things we’re talking about.

[Page 31]

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

Do you have any advice for those in our audience who aspire to a judicial appointment on how to increase their chances of actually securing an appointment?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Yeah, that’s a good question, Courtney, and one that would come up a lot in my old job and people would often ask me. I have less of a sense of Governor Newsom’s administration, but I think it is true of them as well, some of those old tropes that we described—you need to be a prosecutor, you need to have had this kind of trial experience, or that civil defense work is better than civil plaintiffs’ work—I think some of that is out the window now for the better. And as a consequence, some of the necessary strategizing that I think used to necessarily occur in order to get to the right kind of profile or the right kind of resume is no longer necessary. That’s great because the upshot of it is, as I described earlier, we were looking, and I think the current administration is looking, for people who excel in whatever field they have chosen.

And it became incredibly apparent that that was the way to get there when we actually got on the phone and started making phone calls on people’s references. It’s like hiring, in many ways, for any other position at your law firm or elsewhere; you wanted to hear from opposing counsel, from colleagues, from co-counsel, "This is an incredible lawyer, full stop." And so, my advice is just excel in whatever you’re doing so that when we make those phone calls, everybody who you come in contact with is saying, "This is an incredible lawyer." So, do your best at the work that’s on your plate and worry less about this kind of strategy or the kind of career trajectory to get you there.

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

The California Supreme Court relies on a unique mix of career and term law clerks. Can you talk about your hiring process and what qualities you look for in selecting your law clerks and chamber staff?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

At the core, I would say I want people to challenge me a little bit. The goal up here, as it is in any level of the judiciary, is rule number one is try and get it right. So, as my clerks hear like a mantra from me almost every day, I want to be pushed, I want you to ask questions, I want you to disagree, and I try to pick people who would do that. My civil experience was largely defense-oriented. One of my lawyers came from a civil plaintiffs’ background. My experience was more civil than criminal. Several of my lawyers have criminal experience, but again, two different backgrounds; one comes from the attorney general’s office, one came from a criminal defense background, one came from the court of appeal, and was a permanent clerk on the Second District. And so, what I hoped to create, and I think I have, is that whether we’re discussing a case or discussing an issue, we’re going to get robust discussion, different points of views from people with different backgrounds and different perspectives, who won’t just say, "Yes, Judge—whatever you say, Judge" because that is a recipe for getting it wrong and so that has been my goal throughout.

[Page 32]

MS. CHERYL JOHNSON:

So, we’d like to pivot to the environment that you found on the California Supreme Court. You’re the newest member of the Curt. How have you been adjusting to your role on the bench and how does your role as the newest member impact your opinions or the role that you play on the Court?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Like any new work place, it’s all about your colleagues. And so, I was able to join with six of the brightest, most impressive, and kindest colleagues on the Court that one could ever dream of. And then beyond that, the staff at the Court, the institutional knowledge, the dedication, the experience, and the resources have absolutely blown me away. And so, at every turn, every day, every week, I am benefiting from that infrastructure, so to speak.

As the newest member of the Court, in many ways, I’m lucky. As is known, when we speak—when we conference, either after an argument or a petition conference—we speak in order of seniority, though the Chief Justice speaks last. But that means that by the time it is my moment to offer an opinion, a bunch of very smart, very seasoned, very thoughtful, and very kind colleagues have spoken before me. And so as the newest member, I’ve learned that part of my job is to listen good and well and that puts me in good stead because often when it’s my time to speak, I’m able to simply say, "What she said" [laughter]. And so that is how I have navigated that role here.

MS. CHERYL JOHNSON:

The California Supreme Court has a reputation for being very collegial and from all appearances, does not appear to be ideologically divided. The vast majority of the decisions are unanimous. Do you feel pressure to agree with other justices’ opinions?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

No. The reality is the only pressure that comes is from myself; that is to say every justice reaches a moment in a close case, particularly when they have their doubts, when we must ask ourselves, "Do I feel strongly enough that I want to dissent or would I rather try to shape the majority through input and through that process rather than writing separately?" But that is a pressure upon the overarching paradigm of the work and the work product that we are spitting out. The collegiality and the relationships do not create any fear or difficulty with writing separately either in concurrence or dissent and we all do that plenty. And in some ways, it may be counterintuitive but at least for me, the collegiality of the Court actually makes it easier to write separately. I am able to very directly say to the author, "It’s a really strong majority, made every point you could possibly make; I just read the statute differently." And that is actually easier than a combative or more difficult atmosphere so it has been a joy, quite frankly, in that regard.

[Page 33]

MS. CHERYL JOHNSON:

So, you were appointed to California’s highest court with no previous experience on the bench and a majority of the members of the current Court had no previous experience as a judge. How would you address any concern about the lack of judicial experience?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

It’s a good question and, as I recall saying, I think at my confirmation hearing when I was appointed, it’s not a court that was wanting for judicial experience. At the time I was appointed, I think we tallied something like there was 90 years of collective court experience amongst several of the members and I am enriched by that and the process that I described. Every day, I’m able to—if we’re talking about an arraignment, hear from one of my colleagues, here is what happens on an arraignment calendar, if we are talking about a dependency case, I am able to hear from one of my colleagues, here is what happens in this kind of dependency case and the kinds of things you are looking at. I look and I listen good and hard to that kind of experience and benefit from it every day. But the reality is the kinds of cases we’re hearing, we’re not just resolving hearsay objections on the fly; they are largely highly academic, highly research—intensive questions of pure law; that’s what we do up here. We are not fact finders and so, that is a very different posture.

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

I’d like to shift gears and talk about judicial operations and guidance you might have for practitioners. What do you look for when considering whether to accept a case and what can a petitioner do to improve the prospects of the California Supreme Court granting a petition for review?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

The primary guidance I can give is that there is a tendency, particularly for lawyers who have been working on the case for a while and particularly for lawyers who were involved in the case at the trial level, to scream in their petition that the lower court got it wrong, the lower court got it wrong, they got it wrong. And if you look at our rules, error correction is not one of the bases for granting a petition for review; we are not a court of error correction. We get thousands of petitions every year and grant a very small fraction of them. So, the question that we debate when deciding whether to grant a petition that are reflected in our rules is, essentially, why are you so special; not to correct an error. And what that typically redounds to either is a clear conflict in the courts below—several courts of appeal have said X, several other courts of appeal have said the opposite of X—as a paradigmatic case where we would accept the petition. And the other is a case where there may not be a true split but it’s an issue of statewide import that is either pressing or likely to occur and simply needs a clear decision from our Court. And those are the boxes you are trying to get in, typically, when you’re petitioning to our Court. But merely saying "we disagree with the trial judge" is not a successful route to getting a petition granted in our Court.

[Page 34]

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

And how important are amicus briefs to your decision—making process at both the petition and the merits stage?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

They are important and it’s a good question because it picks up on my last comment. Amicus, particularly, people practicing in the field or representing companies or industries in the field, are able to express to us why this issue is important, why it’s troublesome, why clarity is necessary, why the decision below is causing mischief, and they are able to give that real world feel. We don’t need amicus to simply rehash the legal issues that presumably, if done right, was done in the primary petition. But the ability to say this is a family law case, we are certified family law specialists, and let us tell you what happens on the ground and why this issue is so important. That kind of input is incredibly helpful.

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

And in your view, what makes a persuasive and effective merits brief? Are there any approaches or styles that you find particularly helpful or unhelpful?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

What I tend to find in the most helpful merits briefs is they have decided to prioritize the issues, they’ve triangulated around the issues that are most important, and tried to focus the Court’s attention on those issues. There is a certain tendency when you come to our Court for some practitioners, they do the try-everything-approach; we are going to make 10 arguments and maybe one will work. And what that tends to do is just dilute all 10 arguments. The briefs that can really focus us on the winning arguments rather than trying a buckshot approach to success tend to be the ones that are most effective and most appreciated. Otherwise, I think you end up diluting the arguments.

MS. CHERYL JOHNSON:

In terms of oral arguments, can you share with us what you feel is the style or styles that are most effective and those that are kind of off-putting or maybe even counterproductive?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Yes, the answer is the same for both; two sides of the same coin. My number one tip for oral argument, as incredibly obvious as it sounds, is answer the question that has been put to you. And the reality is this is a case where seven justices and our staffs have been struggling with issues, debating them, writing about them, exchanging memos for many, many months. When we get to oral argument, we are not asking questions for performance, we’re not asking questions for the benefit of our other colleagues, we’re not asking questions to show how smart we are. We are asking questions because we’ve actually been struggling with that very question and we would very much like to know the answer. And this isn’t politics so dodging a hard question doesn’t get you anywhere and it’s abundantly obvious. Or even if it’s not a dodge, lawyers are sometimes so focused on what they want to talk about and where they want to go that they are unable to pivot and say, "Alright, well, if the Court cares about X, even though I was more focused on Y, I better talk about X." A colleague or I will ask a question and, much to my shock, the practitioner will just say, "Well, I’m going to address that later, your Honor." No, you’re going to address it right now—[laughter]—if you want to be an effective advocate. And so, again, as trivial as it might sound, the best lawyers give good and direct answers to the very questions we ask and the people who don’t have that kind of success endeavor to evade or circle back or nip around the edges of the questions we are asking. Just because it’s a hard question doesn’t mean you should not answer it; it means we are struggling with it and if you can give us a satisfactory answer to a hard question, your client is in much better stead.

[Page 35]

MS. CHERYL JOHNSON:

I think every justice we’ve interviewed has had the same answer: Answer the question [laughter].

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Right.

MS. CHERYL JOHNSON:

Don’t try and avoid it. Well, we talked a bit about politics—you have a background in both litigation and politics. How do you divorce the law from the political realities that you face as a justice on the state’s highest court?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

It’s a real joy. I know this may sound glib but it hasn’t been hard at all. It’s nice just to think about the briefs and the arguments and decide on that basis. Politics is a lot of noise, a lot of other factors that one has to consider, and to be able to take away all that noise and simply focus on the merits of the argument is a joy. I was able to trade in a lot of distractions, a lot of competing interests, a lot of issues of appearance and reporting and instead, just focus on the merits. And so, that has been a trade I have been quite pleased to make and it has been surprisingly not so challenging; it really, really hasn’t.

MS. CHERYL JOHNSON:

Interesting. So, is there a particular decision that you have issued in your time on the bench so far that you have found most interesting or that you are the proudest of?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

There are a few. The one that comes to mind is sort of a funny, slightly esoteric question but it’s a case called Robinson that came to us as a certified question on the Ninth Circuit. The reason I am proud of it, but what also makes it esoteric, is because the way our state courts process and handle state habeas cases have a major impact on the way the federal courts handle the habeas case, particularly with respect to tolling in order to ensure that the filing is timely. And so, it was sort of a sui generis, certified question from the Ninth Circuit. The question was essentially—and I’m oversimplifying here a little bit; not by much—can you tell us how state habeas processes work? And that’s a funny opinion—that’s an interesting opinion to write; it’s not the usual opinion that we work on. And so, being able to describe these ornate procedures for the benefit of not only the state courts but principally for federal court practitioners, was a unique and interesting posture to find ourselves in.; I rather enjoyed it and it was a question that I think was plaguing the federal courts for some time, ergo the certified question, and so to the extent our edification actually makes it easier for petitioners, practitioners, and judges in the federal court to do that difficult and important work, it’s also a source of some pride, although the decision is new so that remains to be seen, I guess.

[Page 36]

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

Justice Groban, I’d like to return to a topic that we were discussing previously. As a member of Governor Brown’s administration, you were widely heralded for your role in diversifying the California judiciary, both demographically and in terms of professional background. Can you talk a little bit more about why you have been so dedicated to this cause?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Yes, thanks for asking, Courtney. Much of it is that I’m so proud—like all of you, of our judicial system and our judiciary. And it speaks volumes about the integrity of our processes, the fairness of our systems, the rights to due process; though we have an imperfect system, we have the best one going that I know of. And when you walk into a courtroom that so clearly does not reflect the demographics of the community it serves, that invariably, for lawyers, for the general public, and for others, is going to raise questions about the fairness of our process.

It’s a simple proposition; our courts should look like the communities they serve. And when you think about all of the difficult and often terrifying positions that people find themselves in in courtrooms, particularly without the aid of counsel, but even some with counsel and equally terrified—everything from unlawful detainer, to criminal cases, to family cases, to juvenile dependency cases—these are terrifying places to be for many and the integrity of the system is paramount. And when those people walk into courtrooms and don’t see anyone that looks like their communities, it’s invariably going to cause distrust in the system.

I also think having bench officers who have rich and diverse life experiences makes the system better and that’s true not simply based upon race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, but also as you heard from me, practice background; people who have done plaintiffs’ work instead of defense work or criminal defense work instead of prosecution. All of those backgrounds and experiences make an imprint on us as bench officers and it matters to have that kind of diversity. And I think it makes the system better in the long run.

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

Yeah, I agree. Speaking of Jerry Brown, can you tell us what he’s up to now?

[Page 37]

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

He’s always busy. He’s on the ranch in Williams. I think he has been preparing for these apocalyptic times since the seminary in the ’60s and so he’s ready. He’s constantly reading, he’s incredibly engaged in board work, he’s particularly focused on two kinds of, what he calls, existential threats of our time, and this is what I mean by he’s been preparing for the apocalypse his whole life. He’s totally focused on nuclear nonproliferation issues and on climate change and is constantly reading and talking. He just published a piece a few weeks ago, I think, on related issues. He serves on several boards, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Nuclear Threat Initiative, and others, and he is as engaged as they come. So, he’s plenty busy and I think we are all better for it because he’s doing important and good work.

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

Thank you. And now let’s pivot and discuss your family and how you maintain a healthy work-life balance. What activities do you enjoy to take a break from the Court?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Like all of you, the answer changes; it’s now through sort of a pandemic lens that we have to answer these questions. But when we are able, when we’re not in complete shelter-in-place mode or when we’re not having to stay indoors because of forest fires, it has been all about the outdoors. So, lots of time at the beach, lots of hikes, lots of quick little getaways to the mountains; that has been our escape, particularly during the pandemic. And the beach, in particular, has been a haven and a solace this summer for my kids and myself, so that has been the primary endeavor.

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

Speaking of your family, you have a wife and two young children. Is there anything you’d like to share with us about them?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Yes, I’m always delighted to have the opportunity to brag about them so thank you, Courtney. My wife is a TV writer in Los Angeles and always busy and working on interesting projects. Many of her projects tend to have a historic, a real-life historical bend—true crime, period pieces, and other work about the art world—so I’m always learning as she’s writing. I have an eight-year-old and a five-year-old. The eight-year-old boy is a sports fanatic and will be delighted to either play sports with anyone or just talk about the Dodgers with anyone nearby. And the five-year-old girl is also a delight and loves her dolls and her paints and swimming whenever she gets the opportunity, so thank you for giving me the chance to brag about them.

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Would you like to see your children follow you into the legal profession?

[Page 38]

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Every lawyer on this call may have to ask themselves this same question. The short answer is I want them to do whatever makes them happy. For me, part of the inquiry and the career searching is there are plenty of happy lawyers but there are also plenty of unhappy ones. As you know, I spent a lot of time constantly talking to lawyers throughout my career, trying to identify where the happiest ones tended to reside and where that happiness quotient coincided with my own interests.

For me, the overlap became lawyers working in the public interest, working in the public sector, and so that is where I landed. But though I have described a long course of serendipity, it wasn’t totally serendipitous. I was always struck, even in talking to the most senior lawyers in my law firm, that their most wistful, happy stories still seemed to be from 30 years ago when they were working in government or when they were with the US Attorney’s Office and that always struck me. And so, the short answer is I would be delighted if my kids went into law but as long as they found the happy lawyer path, as opposed to the not-so-happy lawyer path. And as all of you know, that is tricky to navigate.

MS. CHERYL JOHNSON:

So, I want to get to the question that I think everybody is waiting for. You have the same name as singer Josh Groban and he congratulated you on Twitter for your appointment to the Supreme Court. Now, rumor has it that the two of you are distantly related and/or that you may have some hidden musical talents. Can you address those rumors?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Yes. Like most rumors, they are partially true, but with some problems. The problem is I have no musical talent whatsoever, so you can put that off to the side immediately. The true part is I think we are related. Were my father here, he would happily trace for you the lineage, but we are second or third cousins, as I recall. And it’s a small world; it turns out he lives in Los Angeles not that far from me, so there’s a decade or more of history of mixed-up dry-cleaning and prescriptions at the pharmacy.

MS. CHERYL JOHNSON:

You’ve lived on the east coast and you’ve lived in a lot of different cities in California. Where do your sports loyalties lie? We know your son likes the Dodgers; what are your teams?

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Though it does not lead to familial bliss, I grew up in San Diego and remain a tried-and-true San Diego Padres fan and I’m, similarly, a Chargers fan. I still call them the San Diego Chargers, though they moved, so the Padres and Dodgers are vying for first place at this moment and just finished a three-game series and it led to some spirited sports-watching in the house this week, which redounded to my son’s benefit because the Dodgers took two out of three.

[Page 39]

MS. CHERYL JOHNSON:

Well, thank you so much, Justice Groban. I want to extend our sincerest gratitude for you sharing your time with us and allowing us to divert you from solving the state’s most vexing legal problems. If we weren’t virtual, there would be a room of people applauding you. Since we are virtual, I think we’re just going to end this with Courtney and I joining the silent audience applauding you. Thank you so much.

JUSTICE JOSHUA GROBAN:

Thank you.

MS. COURTNEY PALKO:

Thank you.

[Page 40]

——–

Notes:

^1. Cheryl Lee Johnson is a former Deputy Attorney General of the Office of the California Attorney General’s Antitrust Section in Los Angeles, and a former Chair of the California Lawyers Association Antitrust and Unfair Competition Law Section. Courtney A. Palko is a Partner at Baute Crochetiere Hartley & Velkei LLP, and Vice-Chair of the California Antitrust & UCL Treatise published by this Section.