Jurist opens courtroom doors for deaf, low-income and
minorities
By Amy Yarbrough
Staff Writer
James Lambden’s mother was a waitress with a limited
education whose knowledge of the law came from serving lawyers and
judges at banquets. But she gave him a bit of advice that served him well on
the bench: See everyone in the room.
Stella Lambden wasn’t the only family member to influence
the retired associate justice’s legal career. His sister Judith Leasher
suffered lifelong hearing loss as the result of a childhood illness, and
Lambden learned from her experiences how language limitations can exclude
people.
As a lawyer, Lambden applied that knowledge, helping
interpreters for the deaf and hard-of-hearing to formalize the training and
certification for courtroom interpreters. He also served as legal adviser to
the Bay Area Center for Law & The Deaf and taught classes through the
Alameda County Bar Association designed to help hearing lawyers better serve
their deaf clients, understand deaf culture and appreciate the obstacles they
face in court.
During his years as an Alameda County Superior Court judge
and an associate justice with the First District Court of Appeal, Lambden also served
on the California Commission on Access to Justice, among other groups, working
to eliminate physical and economic barriers to justice. Lambden was recognized
for his efforts on Dec. 12, when he received the Benjamin Aranda III Access to
Justice Award.
Given by the Judicial Council, State Bar and the California
Judges Association, the Aranda award recognizes those who have shown a
long-term commitment to improving access to justice for low and moderate-income
Californians. Lambden is the 16th recipient of the award since it was
established in 1999.
In one of the letters submitted in support of his nomination
for the award, First District Court of Appeal Presiding Justice Kathleen
O’Leary and Associate Justice Maria Rivera wrote that Lambden has been
“tireless, heartfelt, unassuming and very effective.
“Justice Lambden has been a beacon for access and fairness,
illuminating the dark places where our courts must improve the delivery of
services to those who encounter the greatest barriers to justice,” wrote
O’Leary and Rivera, both former Aranda award recipients. “He is also a
brilliant jurist, an obedient servant of the law and a gentle soul.”
Lambden, 63, who joined the private alternative dispute
resolution firm ADR Services Inc. in September after retiring from the court of
appeal over the summer, said he was “very pleased” to have received the award,
noting that the prior recipients are all friends.
“What can you say? It’s a great honor. I am very flattered,”
he said.
Early in his legal career, while he was a business trial
attorney at Fitzgerald, Abbott & Beardsley in Oakland, Lambden filed a
federal action on behalf of deaf California State University System students
seeking to establish the right to American Sign Language interpretation in
their classes. Lambden also represented a deaf-from-birth professor at the California
School for the Deaf. As a result, he got to know a whole community of people
with limited hearing and gain an appreciation for the difficulties they
experienced in a courtroom setting.
In the early days of Lambden’s career, many judges
expected deaf litigants to either lip read – which is not only difficult
to do, but can be inaccurate – or have their children or other family members
translate for them, he said.
“I was surprised the courts weren’t better at serving people
that way and there was a superficial view of what was required for people to
participate in court,” he said.
Lambden also turned his efforts toward improving access to
justice for other groups, including non-English speakers and court users of
limited means.
“Once you begin to see excluded people, you become sensitive
to exclusion everywhere,” he wrote in a recent email.
In 1997, shortly after his appointment to the court of
appeal, then-Chief Justice Ronald M. George appointed Lambden to serve on the
newly formed California Commission on Access to Justice, charged with finding
ways to ensure Californians can have their day in court.
“The lesson I learned about opening up the court to the deaf
translated very easily to everyone else,” he recalled. “That appointment to the
commission really broadened my perspective.”
From the beginning, the group focused on reducing economic
barriers to justice, most notably the fact that California was one of only a
couple of states that provided negligible funding for legal services. A group
of six commission members used to pile into Lambden’s GMC van – normally used
for backpacking trips – and head up to Sacramento to lobby. One of the most
effective tools in their arsenal was a map that showed states in relation to
the amount of money they spent on legal services.
“Alabama was huge, and California was small,” he said.
“Pretty rapidly, we got the votes.”
After the Legislature agreed to fund $10 million in legal services the first year, commission
members kept their fingers crossed in hopes the funding wouldn’t go away,
Lambden said.
“Every year after, we held our breath to hope nobody noticed
it,” he said. “We lobbied every year to make sure it stayed in … until it
became solid.”
Their efforts persuaded the Legislature to establish the
Equal Access Fund, which since 1999 has provided more than $170 million for
legal services for the indigent.
State Bar Office of Legal Services Director Mary Lavery
Flynn, who served on the commission with Lambden, described Lambden’s lobbying
efforts as “masterful,” calling him “an incredibly gentle person, very kind,
considerate, but effective.
“He considers himself part of the access world,” she said.
Lambden served as chair of the commission from 2000 to 2001
and continues to be involved as an ex-officio adviser. Among his many
contributions has been to serve as a member of the Limited Scope Legal
Assistance Committee, which explored ways to unbundle legal services to try to
make them more affordable. He also helped to draft rules and forms to implement
limited scope legal assistance.
In 2003, Lambden was appointed to chair the Judicial
Council’s Access and Fairness Advisory Committee, a role he served in for nine
years. Among the projects carried out under Lambden’s leadership was the
creation of brochures for court users and court staff that explained the
process for accommodating people with disabilities.
More recently, Lambden helped found California’s
Tribal/State Forum, an effort aimed at improving justice in Native American
communities by eliminating overlapping jurisdictional problems that leave
tribal courts at a disadvantage. Historically, there had been problems with
local law enforcement not recognizing tribal paperwork and local courts not
honoring tribal court orders.
Richard C. Blake, chief judge of the Hoopa Valley Tribe,
said that after Lambden gave a speech at the National American Indian Court
Judges Association last year, two states, Arizona and Michigan, reignited their
efforts to launch similar groups to improve state and tribal relationships.
“It gave them a breath of fresh air,” Blake said.
Lambden said there’s no magic behind his success with access
issues. He simply stays open to “opportunities to behave compassionately.
“All I have ever done is to look for the opportunity … so
that more people get into court,” he said.