Legal News

Longtime California Judge, Joseph Lodge dies at 76

By Jason Siegel

One of the longest serving judges in California history, Santa Barbara Judge Joseph Lodge died last Monday after a 10 year battle with  lymphoma, the Los Angeles Times reported. He was 76.

Lodge, a Minnesota native, came to California to practice law. At age 26, fresh out of law school, he won an election against an incumbent judge, despite knowing few people, Santa Barbara University's Daily Nexus reported. He was the youngest judicial officer in the state, working mostly on preliminary hearings and misdemeanor trials, the Santa Barbara Independent reported.

The next year, 1959, he started what would be a long teaching career at U.C. Santa Barbara's law school. Lodge went on to become a municipal court judge and superior court judge in Santa Barbara's South County.

After four years fighting cancer, he had a non-retirement party in 2002 which he decreed was in lieu of a memorial service. The Santa Barbara Independent reports that Lodge wrote his own obituary concluding ?I do go gentle into that good night.?

Lodge willed his body to UCLA's medical school to help with a shortage in research cadavers for young medical students, the Santa Barbara Independent reported.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on May 13, 2008 (boomark / email).