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AABA Bids Farewell To Judge Lenard Louie, Pioneer and Long-Time Supporter of AABA

AABA will honor Judge Lenard Louie by awarding a scholarship in his name at the 27th Annual Installation Dinner on Friday, March 19, 2004 at the Far East Café in San Francisco. Louie, one of the pioneers of the Asian legal community and one of the original supporters of AABA, passed away on February 24 from a long illness that had kept him away from the court for several months. He was 68.

“We will miss Judge Louie very much,” said San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi. “He was someone who was always there for AABA, volunteering for mock trials and attending AABA events. He was very proud of what AABA stood for and what the organization had accomplished.”

A San Francisco native, Judge Louie graduated from Hastings College of the Law and the University of San Francisco. Before being appointed to the bench, Judge Louie joined the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office in 1969, where he made a name for himself as a deputy district attorney who aggressively prosecuted Asian gangs. From 1962 to 1964, he worked for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“I thought he was one of the most open, friendly, non-egotistic, selfless people I have ever met in the legal profession,” said Donald Tamaki, who first met Judge Louie when Judge Louie was working in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. “He is smart, tough, and he also has a good sense of humor. He knew when not to take things personally with adversaries. It is that kind of temperament which has made him a great judge.”

Throughout his career, Judge Louie has served as a role model and mentor to many Asians in the legal profession— including myself. I worked for Judge Louie as his extern during my first year of law school. "

Adachi remembers when he first saw Judge Louie in action as a San Francisco district attorney. “I first met Judge Louie as a first-year law student. I happened to be watching preliminary hearings, and I was astonished to see an Asian deputy district attorney aggressively cross-examining a witness,” Adachi said. “You didn’t see many Asian trial lawyers at the Hall of Justice, and Judge Louie later told me that he was one of the first Asian-American DAs during the 17 years he worked as a prosecutor. He was a remarkable trial lawyer in his day.”

Judge Louie entered the legal profession at a time when there were not many Asian attorneys. “He is one of the pioneers,” said Tamaki . “He was not only among the first wave of Asian Americans who were entering the legal profession in significant numbers, but he must have been one of the very few Asian-American district attorneys anywhere.”

Adachi said being one of the few Asian Americans working in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office was not easy. “Judge Louie endured a lot of racism and discrimination as a young DA, as did many Asian attorneys during that era. People weren’t accustomed to seeing Asians in court,” Adachi said. “He liked to tell one story about how he was once selecting a jury, one of the prospective jurors said, ‘I can’t vote for your side because you’re Chinese.’ Judge Louie quickly retorted, ‘Would you rather vote against me because of my race, and let that son-of-a-gun (pointing to the accused) get off with committing a crime?’ I don’t know if he really said that, but it was a great story.”

Judge Louie was appointed to the San Francisco Municipal Court in 1985 and to the Superior Court in 1989 by then-Governor George Deukmejian. He has served most of his time on the bench at the Hall of Justice in San Francisco, presiding over criminal matters.

“As a judge, he was known as the ‘Godfather’ at the Hall of Justice,” Adachi said. “The Hall is a very rough-and-tumble world, and Judge Louie quickly rose to the top because he had been a trial lawyer and knew the value of cases. He could see a case for what it was, and was good at bringing two parties to the table and figuring out what they really wanted. That’s a rare talent, and Judge Louie was greatly respected by the lawyers who came before him.”

Adachi said Judge Louie was also respected by the defendants who appeared before him. “Judge Louie was also a people’s judge. He treated every person with respect, and although he was tough, he was also compassionate. He was also deeply religious, and it showed in the advice that he liked to give people,” Adachi said. “He understood the fragility of the human condition, and was not caught by the trappings of being a judge.”

Judge Louie also made an impression upon his peers, including Judge Newton Lam, who currently presides at the Hall of Justice.

“His presence at the Hall of Justice was such that he wasn’t a just role model to we who are Chinese and Asian but for all who came to practice before that man at the Hall,” Judge Lam said. “For years, Lenard encouraged me to seek judicial appointment and he reminded me and my generation of our responsibilities to the profession, our community and to ourselves. He never forgot where he came from and was always an ambassador for and a servant to the San Francisco Chinatown community. I’ll miss him, and much regret his passing.”

Lam has so much respect for Judge Louie that it made it tough for him to refer to Judge Louie as “Lenard,” even after his appointment to the bench. “He earned the love and respect of all who met him with his common sense, compassion, intelligence and accessibility,” Judge Lam said. “He had the presence of a town elder without the pretensions and demands. He could command with a look and break the tension with a quip but he was as casual and familiar as an old coat. He overcame and outpaced the prejudice and bias of his times. He changed the old ideas and ways of those around him. No one who worked with him could say he wasn’t qualified, capable and eventually welcomed and needed. He was so much so that we who follow no longer have to face those questions about whether we belong or can do the job.

His perseverance, tenacity, talent and skill broke open the criminal field to all of us who followed.” Judge Lillian Sing, who visited Judge Louie the night before he passed away, said Judge Louie wanted to retire and devote his life to his church, Sukyo Mahihari.

“Judge Louie was truly a loving, gentle and sweet person with a great sense of humor,” she said. “We will all miss him terribly.”