Newsom's pick for California high court seen as consensus builder, LGBTQ history maker
LOS ANGELES — On a recent morning in Alameda County Superior Court, Judge Kelli Evans had a docket many jurists wouldn't envy — full of civil harassment cases involving litigants who didn't have lawyers or any firm grasp of the law.
The people before her were seeking restraining orders against neighbors, roommates and former friends. Each had a dramatic story, some more plausible than others. The accusers and the accused, some of whom appeared to be struggling with mental illness, also had vastly different versions of the same events.
Evans did not seem bothered. She listened, tried to understand where each person was coming from, explained the relevant legal issues and cut to the heart of each case to make careful, legally sound decisions, said Tiela Chalmers, chief executive and general counsel of the Alameda County Bar Association.
"Boy, she was just so good at listening to people," said Chalmers, who has observed Evans' career for years and watched the proceedings that day. "She has such a way of carefully listening and steering the conversation to where it needs to go from a legal standpoint."
It's a skill set Chalmers and others said has served Evans well as she's worked through a diverse slate of legal jobs in the nonprofit, private and government sectors. And it's one they said would continue to benefit her were she to be confirmed as the next associate justice — the first openly lesbian justice — on the
