Roger J. Traynor

Roger John Traynor (February 12, 1900 – May 14, 1983) was the 23rd Chief Justice of California (1964–1970) and an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California from 1940 to 1964. Previously, he had served as a Deputy Attorney General of California under Earl Warren, and an Acting Dean and Professor of UC Berkeley School of Law. He is widely considered to be one of the most creative and influential judges and legal scholars of his time. A jurist noted for liberalism and activism, Traynor's 30-year career as California's 77th Justice coincided with demographic, social, and governmental growth in California and in the United States of America. Traynor believed (in the words of his biographer, G. Edward White) that "the increased presence of government in American life was a necessary and beneficial phenomenon." After his retirement from the California Supreme Court, Traynor spent the last years of his life as a professor at the UC Hastings College of Law. Early life and education Traynor was born and raised in Park City, Utah, then a mining town, at the turn of the century by Felix and Elizabeth Traynor. His parents were impoverished Irish immigrants from Hilltown, County Down. In 1919, upon the advice of a high school teacher, he entered the University of California, Berkeley, though he had only $500 in savings to finance his college education. He won a scholarship at the end of his first year due to his excellent grades, and went on to earn a B.A. in 1923, an M.A. in 1924, and a Ph.D. in 1926; all these degrees were in political science. He also earned a J.D. from Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley's law school, in 1927. He earned the two latter degrees at the same time, while also teaching undergraduates and serving as editor-in-chief of the California Law Review. He was subsequently admitted to the State Bar of California that same year.