In this stirring, scholarly memoir, LaDoris Hazzard Cordell recalls the highs and lows, the weighty decisions and the lighter moments that arose during her impressive career as a judge in Northern California.

While a professor at Stanford University and a lawyer in private practice in 1980, Cordell got a call out of the blue asking her to preside over a case as a judge pro tem. The caller may have wanted to demonstrate some diversity in his municipal court by having a Black woman judge a minor case involving two Black women having a dispute about a hairdo. It would have been a tough case for a man to decide, even more so for a white man, but Cordell was the perfect fit. She knew about the touchy issues involved in treating hair; she had experienced them since early childhood. As it turned out, she enjoyed hearing the differing sides of the issue and being the decision maker. So she applied to become a judge, winning that role a couple of years later, as the first Black female judge in Northern California.

"...[a] stirring, scholarly memoir... [Cordell's] life story in its totality makes for a gripping tale of the undeniable, admirable achievements of someone who had to struggle with a multitude of challenges to attain them."

Thus began a career about which she has vibrant memories supported by a sharp legal intelligence and an enjoyable sense of humor that occasionally creeps through the seriousness of the book’s general focus. She writes, as an example of the latter quality, about the ability --- indeed the requirement --- of judges to be “rude.” Many times she was called upon to interrupt, something for which she had been chided in her youth, but in a courtroom it creates impact and much-needed control. In examining the fraught complexities of divorce trials, she writes, “In Tennessee, one ground for divorce is the attempted murder of one spouse by the other. That sounds about right.”

In the main, Cordell’s insights treat with the gravity of the judicial system the many ways that it influences and is influenced by issues of race, gender, tradition and regionality, among many preponderating factors. She offers details of the many cases she heard: tangled murder accusations, juveniles perhaps falsely accused or receiving sentences that seemed too harsh for the age of the miscreant, the complexities surrounding crime among those with mental illness, and the thorny situations resulting from will probate, divorce and other parlous legal matters. She has spoken out vigorously for certain improvements in the laws of her state, becoming a spirited advocate for requiring drunk driving offenders to install breath testing devices in their vehicles.

Cordell’s powerful grasp of the clarity of law and the inevitability of consequences is made plain as she compares two similar cases she once had to decide, involving two different criminals --- one Black, the other white. She offers cogent suggestions for revising laws that do not seem to work as they should, urging individual citizens --- judicial personnel in particular --- to consider and act on her well-made points.

Now retired, Cordell has won significant awards in her profession. Her life story in its totality makes for a gripping tale of the undeniable, admirable achievements of someone who had to struggle with a multitude of challenges to attain them.