​​​​​​​To the students, faculty colleagues, and staff at the University of West Los Angeles, President Bernard S. Jefferson was a soft-spoken, passionate educator, whose love for the law and teaching the law made him an influential voice at the university. Jefferson started as associate dean of academic affairs at UWLA’s School of Law in 1982, and eventually went on to become president, serving with distinction until 1992.

Jefferson’s tenure as a scholar put UWLA on the map at the time because of his immense gravitas and prominence in the greater legal community. And his legacy at UWLA lives on and teaches today.

According to UWLA Professor Bruce Schwartz, “It was my privilege to have taught Evidence with the “Justice” for close to twenty years. “With his knowledge of the subject matter, I would kid him that his teaching beginning Evidence was like Einstein teaching first-year college math.”

A Legal Titan in the Making

After graduating cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1934, he earned a Doctor of Juridical Science in the field of evidence. This focus on evidence would be his passion for the rest of his life. He was in private practice in Los Angeles until 1959 when then-Governor Edmund G. Brown appointed him to the Los Angeles Municipal Court. A year later, he was elevated to the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Jefferson was subsequently one of the first African Americans appointed to Division 4 of the 2nd District Court of Appeal in 1975. He also served for a short time as a pro-tem appointee on the California Supreme Court and retired in 1980 as presiding justice of Division 1.

Amongst his most noted accomplishments, Jefferson was a founder of a two-week program for new judges held each year at UC Berkeley. The California Judges College is considered by many to be the preeminent judicial education program in the nation. Following the development of this educational program, Jefferson authored the seminal book on evidence, “California Evidence Benchbook,” a 957-page discourse first published in 1972.

According to Los Angeles daily legal newspaper, the Metropolitan-News Enterprise, Jefferson’s book on evidence has been cited in close to 300 appellate cases. “It was a kind of a bible for evidence,” U.S. District Court Chief Judge Consuelo B. Marshall, of the Central District, said. “He was just a master at being able to explain the rules of evidence and the exceptions of those rules.”

Devoted to the Law, Education, and Civil Rights

In addition to the landmark impacts he had on the court through his many years on the bench, Jefferson was equally impactful in the classroom. During his 12 years serving as president of UWLA, he is noted for having had a major hand in expanding the school’s curriculum. 

The Los Angeles Times reported, “He came in at a critical time to provide the university with the benefit of his reputation and stature in the legal education community,” said Robert W. Brown, UWLA’s current president. “He was always ready to help someone else and to engage in an understanding of the theory of the law. And he could do it in a manner that could make it understandable to a common person. He was a master teacher.”

Professor Schwartz recently added: “Bernard Jefferson truly enjoyed his interactions with the students, and he was thankful that his reputation was responsible for encouraging many diverse students to attend law school. Education was as important to him as was the law, as evidenced by his devotion to UWLA and the Judges’ College, to which he donated the proceeds from the California Evidence Bench Book.”

Jefferson was also a passionate participant in the civil rights movement, working closely with legal luminaries, such as the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and other prominent black attorneys, focusing on critically important civil rights actions.

Jefferson cared deeply about his community and gave freely of his time. He served on the board of directors of the Los Angeles Urban League. He was also a trustee of the First A.M.E. Church of Los Angeles, as well as serving on the board of managers of the YMCA’s Wilshire branch.

Today, Jefferson’s legacy lives on in courtrooms across the state and around the halls of UWLA. Students can read manuscripts of his writing in the school’s law library, gaining a unique glimpse into the mind of a legal giant.

“He was an exemplary judge, justice, educator, and person,” added Professor Schwartz. “One of his favorite sayings always makes me smile: ‘I’ll be brief, no matter how long it takes.’”