Jacqueline L. Weisberg, 1936-2018

Jacqueline L. Weisberg, a former judge and the matriarch of a family of powerful lawyers and judges, has died. She was 82.

“She was very bright and very energetic,” her husband, retired Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stanley M. Weisberg, said Friday.

“When she was an undergraduate at Stanford, she was not only a pompom girl at football and basketball games, she was also Phi Beta Kappa,” he said. “She had both the intellect and energy to do both, and that dual facet of her personality showed in everything she did.”

According to her brother, William H. Levit Jr., a mediator at Levit ADR LLC, Weisberg was born Jan. 1, 1936. She died June 6 due to complications of pneumonia, according to her husband.

Weisberg received her law degree from Stanford University School of Law, where she was one of three women in the 1960 graduating class of 100. She worked briefly for the family business, the law firm Long & Levit LLP, in San Francisco before returning to Los Angeles to work at the U.S. attorney’s office.

Before becoming a judge, Weisberg held positions at the Los Angeles Neighborhood Legal Services, juvenile court, and as a superior court commissioner. In 1976, she was appointed to the Los Angeles Municipal Court by Gov. Jerry Brown. She was sworn in by her father, former Superior Court judge William H. Levit.

Brown elevated Weisberg to the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 1979 where she remained until she retired in 1996.

Weisberg oversaw two high profile cases in the early 80s. In one, the executor of the estate of Groucho Marx, Bank of America, sued Marx’s secretary-companion Erin Flemming, alleging she cheated him out of more than $400,000. The jury trial was, as Weisberg put it in a 1994 interview with the Daily Journal, “a lot of fun,” with a steady stream of celebrities visiting the courtroom, including George Burns and Carroll O’Connor.

On the heavier end of the spectrum, Weisberg dealt a life sentence plus 60 years to Daniel Lee Young, who was convicted of driving his vehicle onto a crowded street in Westwood during the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. People v. Danny Lee Young, 189 Cal App. 3d 891.

Though two decades separate her death from her time on the bench, Weisberg is still remembered for her knowledge, patience and confidence. Nathaniel J. Friedman, who appeared in front of Weisberg several times and was a classmate of hers at Beverly Hills High School, called her a pioneer at a time when many women judges were highly scrutinized.

“She was one of the few female judges who wasn’t insecure,” said Friedman, a sole practitioner in Beverly Hills. “She always had complete control of the courtroom.”

Weisberg continued to serve as an assignment judge in her retirement. Her husband said she also took up golf and enjoyed playing tennis, swimming and vacationing in the south of France. No funeral services were held, at her request.

In addition to her husband and her brother, Weisberg is survived by her son, Jack Weiss, a former Los Angeles city councilman and federal prosecutor, and her son Andrew Weiss. She was also an aunt and grandmother.