California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu is one of the most accomplished lawyers of his generation. After attending Stanford, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and Yale Law School, Justice Liu served as a judicial clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He was an appellate litigator, then one of the most popular law professors at, the University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall), where he became Associate Dean. President Obama nominated him to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, but his nomination was filibustered in the Senate. No matter – days after he withdrew his nomination, California Gov. Jerry Brown contacted Liu to fill a vacancy on the California Supreme Court left by Justice Carlos Moreno. According to the L.A. Times, Gov. Brown said that “he saw in Liu a successor to the late, legendary Justice Roger Traynor, who developed enduring legal principles during his 30 years on the state high court.”
