J. Anthony Kline
Presiding Justice
Born: August 17, 1938 - New York City
B.A.: Johns Hopkins University - 1960
M.A.: Cornell University - 1962
L.L.B.: Yale Law School - 1965
Justice Kline graduated from Johns Hopkins with honors. He attended graduate school at Cornell as an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. At Yale Law School he received the Gherini and Sutherland Cup prizes.
After graduation from law school, Justice Kline served as law clerk to Justice Raymond E. Peters of the California Supreme Court. Thereafter he was for four years an attorney in New York with the Wall Street firm of Davis Polk and Wardwell. In 1971, after returning to California, he served as a Legal Services Lawyer and was one of the founders of Public Advocates, Inc., the first non-profit public interest law firm in the west. He was Managing Attorney of Public Advocates when, in January 1975, he was appointed Legal Affairs Secretary to Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr.
As Legal Affairs Secretary, Justice Kline served on the Governor’s cabinet for six years, until he was appointed to the San Francisco Superior Court in September 1980. He was appointed Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal in December 1982.
At the present time Justice Kline is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Conservation Corps and a member of the Board of Directors of the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association and the American Jewish Congress (Northern California Division). He has served on the Board of Directors of Youth Service America, the San Francisco Lawyers Committee for Urban Affairs, the San Francisco Private Industry Council, and was President of the Youth Guidance Center Improvement Committee. He is also a member of the Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee of the California Judicial Council, California Judges Association, the Institute of Judicial Administration, the World Affairs Council, and the National Association of Youth and Conservation Corps.