Profile of John Shepard Wiley Jr.

Equal justice under law is our national ideal. It is so important that, every day, judges do their best to make this dream come true for the people who bring their disputes to court for fair resolution under the rule of law. 

John Wiley was born in Iowa. When he was 12, his family moved to California, where he attended public school from junior high through law school.

John was appointed to the Superior Court in 2002 and to the Court of Appeal in 2018. He clerked for Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the United States and for Judge Frank Coffin of the First Circuit. John has published in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Duke Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Columbia Law Review, and American Economics Review. John was tenured at UCLA Law School, where he won UCLA’s Distinguished Teaching Award.  John was a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. He was a federal prosecutor. John has been happily married for more than 40 years, and he and his wife have two grown children.

In Yosemite, John climbed The Nose on El Capitan and the Northwest Face of Half Dome as a young guy. These days, though, he more often is climbing indoors at a gym in central Los Angeles. 

John enjoys working with his hands, fixing old chairs and sawing up wood. Lately he has been making furniture for people who lost their homes in the Los Angeles fires.