A Gracious, Grounded Judicial Superstar

By Carla Meyer 

Growing up in Sacramento, Tani Cantil-Sakauye ’84 did not envision she would scale the heights of California’s judicial system.  

But her mother, Mary, might have had an inkling. When Cantil-Sakauye, 63, was a teen, Mary took her to a “meet a lawyer” event organized within Sacramento’s tightknit Filipino American community.  

The lawyer, King Hall graduate Gloria Megino Ochoa ’76, “was the first Filipino lawyer any of us had ever met,” Cantil-Sakauye said.  As Ochoa spoke, “My mother elbowed me and said, ‘You could do that.’”  

Could she ever. Cantil-Sakauye would follow Ochoa to UC Davis Law and embark on a public service trajectory culminating in a sterling 12-year tenure as chief justice of California. Appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2010, Cantil-Sakauye ushered the nation’s largest court system through Great Recession budget cuts and a global pandemic while forging a record of remarkable consensus with fellow justices.  

Cantil-Sakauye retired from the court in January after declining to seek re-election to another 12-year term.  

“By then I had been wearing a black robe for 32 years,” said Cantil-Sakauye, a municipal and superior court judge and appellate justice before becoming chief. “I had accomplished the things I set out to do.”  

She left the state’s judicial branch with “the best, highest budget we have ever had,” and with initiatives she spearheaded in place, including a language access plan and a remote access program that helped the courts navigate the COVID-19 crisis.  

“I gave it a lot of thought and decided I was still young enough to try something different,” she said. That something is her new role as president and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California, the illustrious non-partisan think tank that helps shape state policy. 

PPIC “takes on hard questions, and considers all sides,” she said. “In many ways, being president of this organization … is like being at the front end of the solution rather than the back end. The courts are places of last resort. … The opportunity to come here and try to inform justice and policy and prevent crisis was like, ‘that's a good place to be.’” 

Cantil-Sakauye was characteristically forthcoming and gracious as she reflected on her career during a January interview at PPIC’s Sacramento office and a February Q&A with UC Davis Law Marketing and Communications Executive Director Kelley Weiss conducted during a King Hall event celebrating the chief’s accomplishments. Influenced by an upbringing by one-time farmworker parents and her education at King Hall, that career is distinguished by an insistence on civility and equal access to justice for all. 

‘What Do People Need on the Ground?’  

The first Filipina American and second female state chief justice, Cantil-Sakauye ascended the court system without the usual markers of advantage dotting résumés at her level. Her education was entirely public: Sacramento’s McClatchy High, Sacramento City College, and UC Davis for undergraduate study and law school. Before taking the bench, she was an assistant Sacramento district attorney. 

 This lack of any skipped steps “informed my role in public service and my understanding of what people need,” Cantil-Sakauye said. “‘What do people need on the ground?’ ‘How do we navigate education or work or a justice system?’ I always put myself in the shoes of the person who’s standing at the door trying to get in.”  

Her parents viewed education as “the golden ticket,” she said, although neither was given much opportunity to pursue it. Her father miraculously parlayed a second-grade education into a career as an airplane mechanic. Her mother, who grew up following the crops with her family, finished high school and took a job with the state before entering community college at 50, alongside Cantil-Sakauye’s older sister, Kim. 

“Excited and inspired” by her mother’s associate’s degree, Cantil-Sakauye enrolled at Sac City while still in high school. She developed her extraordinary oratory skills (2011 and 2018 King Hall graduates might recall her extemporaneous eloquence as their commencement speaker) on the Sac City speech and debate team. This was in the analog 1970s, when everything admin was in person.  

“I waited in the community college office,” Cantil-Sakauye recalled. “I asked, ‘How do I transfer to a university?’ They gave me a list. I checked it off. I had to go in all the time to say, ‘Am I following the list correctly?’”  

Such experiences “informed how I view justice from the eyes of the person who's standing in the courtroom -- and it's bewildering.”  

 Cantil-Sakauye devoted her time as chief to making the courts more approachable, and justice more accessible. An early advocate of bail reform, she was part of the 7-0 high court ruling in 2021 that defendants could not be held in jail just because they cannot afford bail.  

Cantil-Sakauye “has had an enormous impact on justice in California,” UC Davis Law Dean Kevin R. Johnson said. “Faced with incredible challenges, she sought and achieved solutions, always with an eye toward equity and fairness.” 

Johnson noted that the former chief justice’s push for equal access went beyond defendants, praising a 7-0 decision, written by Cantil-Sakauye and delivered in 2014, that allowed undocumented immigrants to practice law in California.  

Building Consensus 

Before she could achieve her aims, Cantil-Sakauye needed a workable budget. She had inherited a court system weakened by layoffs, furloughs and “disparate” funding that favored some courts over others even in better times. 

As part of her budget reform efforts, Cantil-Sakauye visited courts and bar associations up and down the state, rallying judges and lawyers to help convince the Legislature that change, and money, were needed. This shoe-leather approach entailed “thousands of miles of travel and living out of a suitcase during my first year as chief.” 

It resulted in a new level of collegiality that was not just helpful, but essential. Because most California judges are elected, “I am not the boss of any of them,” Cantil-Sakauye said. “The only way we get along is if we agree.”  From her tenure as chief, she is proudest of how the judiciary joined in a true “branch collaboration,” she said. 

Jake Dear ’83 saw Cantil-Sakauye’s consensus-building powers firsthand, as chief supervising attorney at the state Supreme Court. Dear and Cantil-Sakauye met during law school but did not know each other well before working together. Dear recently wrote about Cantil-Sakauye’s legacy for the California Supreme Court Historical Society.

A 40-year veteran of the court, Dear notes that serving as chief justice had evolved over time into “a gargantuan task, requiring a person of special focus and drive.” Cantil-Sakauye showed “steely determination” as well as patience and endurance, working nights and weekends to fulfill both roles, of justice and chief administrator. “In the process, she made the judiciary stronger and more unified.”  

Cantil-Sakauye’s steelier qualities shone in her 2017 open letter to then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions condemning ICE agents’ arrests of undocumented immigrants at California courts – a letter that renowned immigration law scholar Johnson calls “courageous.” 

She viewed the arrests as “as entrenchment by the executive branch on the judicial branch’s good name,” Cantil-Sakauye said. “People come to courts because they're in crisis … and they come in good faith. Then to be arrested in a courthouse on a civil warrant and be taken to where no one knows where you went -- and not be represented by counsel -- felt horribly unfair.”  

A lifelong Republican, Cantil-Sakauye quietly switched to “no party preference” in 2018. (Or at least she kept it quiet before a reporter noticed the change to the court website.) She had considered the move for a while, before the “spectacle” of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings sealed her decision. 

“I felt that it was just inappropriate for the judiciary or the executive branch to have this process that seemed to be degrading to everyone,” she says now. 

Through retirements and new appointments, Cantil-Sakauye served with 11 fellow justices – Democrat, Republican, no-party preference – on the seven-person state high court. “I had the pleasure of serving with great, open-minded, confident, brilliant people with whom we could all have disagreement, but it was never personal,” she said. 

Cantil-Sakauye’s court reached unanimity 85% of the time. Although she denies having any outsize sway on colleagues -- “I am just one vote,” she says – her influence is clear when contrasted with the 76% unanimity rate under her predecessor, Chief Justice Ronald George. 

The agreeable Cantil-Sakauye court stands in sharp contrast to a U.S. Supreme Court that seems hopelessly split along party lines. But the systems are too different to compare, Cantil-Sakauye said.  

 “We have a year’s worth of discussion before oral argument,” Cantil-Sakauye said, noting the federal high court discusses little before oral argument. “As soon as the case is argued, within 90 days, we have an opinion. That front-loading gives us a chance to dialogue with each other.”  

 An Education in Cooperation 

The collaboration and civility that marked Cantil-Sakauye’s time on the bench are, not coincidentally, fundamental to King Hall. 

Cantil-Sakauye attended law school alongside her sister, Kim – “she is the smart one,” Cantil-Sakauye says – and found a further sense of belonging among her fellow students. 

King Hall offered “an incredibly nurturing and welcoming environment,” Cantil-Sakauye said. “When you needed a book in the law library, and it was checked out, someone would loan you theirs.” Students also happily shared class notes. 

Back then, Davis was less populated, with less to do. “We made our entertainment,” Cantil-Sakauye said. She played on the intramural basketball team Justice O and the Supremes, named for Sandra Day O’Connor, who had just become the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice.  

“We sent her a T-shirt with our name on it,” Cantil-Sakauye recalled with a laugh. Years later, Cantil-Sakauye worked with O’Connor on civics initiatives. 

“I asked her, ‘did you ever get the T-shirt?’ She couldn’t remember.”  

By that time, O’Connor had retired and was “very giving of her time” to bar associations and law schools, Cantil-Sakauye said. The same can be said of Cantil-Sakauye, a frequent speaker at Sacramento legal community events and her alma mater, even as an active jurist.  

A Friend to UC Davis 

A loyal double Aggie, Cantil-Sakauye said she admires how UC Davis has evolved since she left. 

“Chancellor May and Dean Johnson do a terrific job on outreach to the community and keeping in mind vulnerable populations … Dean Johnson has been a stellar dean.”  

In addition to speaking at commencements, Cantil-Sakauye received the law school’s inaugural Distinguished Alumna Award in 2016. In 2020, the University of California named her one of 55 “Remarkable Women” in UC Davis history. But Cantil-Sakauye’s involvement with her alma mater always has been more granular than grand. 

Her daughter received an undergraduate degree from Davis, and her niece a J.D. from King Hall. Cantil-Sakauye consistently brought in externs from Davis to the Supreme Court. She has spoken frequently at Filipinx Law Students Association events, and even dropped in on a Civil Procedure class taught by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Lawrence Brown ’89. 

The former chief justice “has such an incredible presence, and every time she speaks, I come away inspired,” said Courtney Patton ’24, who has met the chief and heard her speak at FLSA and other community events. 

FLSA Co-Chair Josh Concepcion ’24 also has met Cantil-Sakauye and seen her speak several times. The first time, at a Sacramento Filipino American Lawyers Association event a few years ago, played like a 40-years-hence version of Cantil-Sakauye’s experience with Ochoa. 

“I felt waves of inspiration not just from seeing someone that looked like me in the legal profession,” says Concepcion, “but someone who looked like me and was sitting on the highest court in our state.”