Ira F. Thompson

Ira Francis Thompson (June 20, 1885 – August 4, 1937) was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California from December 31, 1932, to August 4, 1937. Early years Born on a farm in Crawford County, Wisconsin, to James Franklin Thompson and Minerva Julia Drake, Thompson lost his father and mother when he was a child. At the age of 15, he moved to Eureka, California to begin high school, from which he graduated in 1904. After school, he worked part-time running errands at his uncle's newspaper, the Humboldt Standard. Thompson studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where he paid his own school fees and finished a six-year law curriculum in four years, receiving both an A.B. and LL.B. degree in 1909. On July 2, 1909, he was admitted to the State Bar of California. Career After graduation, Thompson worked in Oakland for a year for the firm of Reed, Black & Reed. Then Thompson moved to Los Angeles and began private practice with John F. Manning in the firm of Manning, Thompson & Hoover. Thompson immersed himself in civic causes and Republican Party politics.