Hon. Jo-Lynne Q. Lee

Judge Jo-Lynne Lee was appointed to the bench of the Alameda County Superior Court by former Governor Gray Davis in 2002. She is the first Chinese-American women to serve on the bench of the Alameda County Superior Court. Judge Lee presides over a civil direct calendar.

Judge Lee earned her BA, magna cum laude, from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in 1971 and her J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1974. After law school, she joined the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office and worked as a deputy district attorney for three years. In 1977, Judge Lee became a member of a legal research team associated with the National Center for State Courts in San Francisco that studied trial court delays. Once the project ended, she joined the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California and served as an assistant US Attorney until 1980. In 1981, Judge Lee entered private practice as a defense attorney for construction defect cases and real estate disputes. She first worked at Robinson and Wood, continuing on to the Oakland firms of Kennedy and Wasserman, as well as Kennedy, Gong, Mitchell, and Combs. At the time of her appointment, Judge Lee was practicing at Griffith, Castle, Schwartzman, where she also served as a court-appointed Special Master and Discovery Referee.

Judge Lee is/has been a member of the Asian-American Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the Contra Costa County Bar Association, and the Alameda County Bar Association. She has also been the co-chair of the Alameda Naval Air Station Restoration Advisory Board.