Delbert Gee

Delbert Gee is a retired Alameda County Superior Court Judge who served from 2002 to 2022, presiding over both civil and criminal cases.[1][2]

He began his legal career in 1980 as a Deputy District Attorney in Ventura County where he tried 33 jury trials to verdict. Gee was a civil litigator for the following 20 years in San Francisco.[1][2]

Gee was as a member of the Law Review; receiving his undergraduate degree from the University of California Davis and his law degree from Santa Clara University School of Law. Gee was a first generation college student.[1][2]

Education

Gee was a congressional intern in Washington, D.C. for representative Pete Stark during the Bicentennial summer of 1976, and was co-chair of the campus Media Board at University of California, Davis, where he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in political science in 1977.[1]

He then attended Santa Clara University School of Law where he was an associate editor of the Santa Clara Law Review.[3] Gee clerked for attorney Donald B. Ayer in the criminal division of the office of the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California in San Jose, California.[4] Gee graduated from law school in December 1979.[5]

Gee became a member of the State Bar of California[6] in May 1980 and began his legal career as a Deputy District Attorney in Ventura County where he tried 33 jury trials to verdict as the county's first Asian-Pacific Islander American prosecutor.[7][2]

He then spent the next 20 years in San Francisco as a civil litigator, first as an associate attorney with Hassard, Bonnington, Rogers & Huber and then with Bronson, Bronson & McKinnon, and later as a partner with Sturgeon, Keller, Phillips, Gee & O'Leary PC and then as a founding partner of the Pacific West Law Group LLP.[8][2]

He specialized in the fields of health and liability insurance bad faith litigation, medical malpractice litigation,[9] and health care law.[2][1][10]

Judicial career

Gee was appointed to the bench in 2002 by Gray Davis, at the time the Governor of the State of California. Gee served as a judge of the Superior Court of California (US) for the County of Alameda, and presided over both a civil direct calendar and a criminal felony and misdemeanor calendar and trial court.[1][11][2]

He also presided over a probate, conservatorship, and guardianship court, collaborative and drug courts, and a juvenile dependency and delinquency court.[12][2]

He was the last judge to preside over criminal cases in the Alameda courthouse, and he presided over two civil jury trials conducted entirely by video during the COVID-19 pandemic.[13] He was a member of the court's executive committee, and was the supervising judge of the court's probate division and of the Alameda courthouse.[12][2]

In 2002, he was honored by the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area,[14] and was presented in 2010 with the Judicial Distinguished Service Award by the Alameda County Bar Association[15] and a resolution in his honor by the California State Assembly.[16]

Personal life

Gee's parents immigrated to California, where he attended Livermore High School in Alameda County California. Gee was a first generation college student.[17]

He has been active for decades in numerous professional, civic, and service organizations[2] in the San Francisco Bay Area,[18] and continues to be a sustaining member of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area (AABA) where he founded the AABA Judges Scholarship.[19]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Governor Names Three to Courts in Northern California". Metropolitan News-Enterprise. 11 October 2002. p. 3.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Judge Delbert C. Gee, Superior Court of California county of Alameda - Biography" (PDF).
  3. ^ "Santa Clara Law Review | Journals | Santa Clara Law".
  4. ^ "Santa Clara Law - Lawyers Who Lead". Santa Clara Law.
  5. ^ "Santa Clara Law - Class Notes - Alumni". Santa Clara University. 2006. Archived from the original on 22 November 2006. Retrieved 23 November 2010.
  6. ^ "Home | The State Bar of California". www.calbar.ca.gov. Retrieved 21 March 2026.
  7. ^ "Ventura County District Attorney – Fiat Justitia ~ Let Justice be Done". 1 April 2025.
  8. ^ "San Francisco Health Care Professional Lawyers | Marin County Medical Board Defense Attorney | Bay Area Physician Representation". www.pacificwestlaw.com.
  9. ^ White, Paul F. (1997). Ambulatory Anesthesia & Surgery. London, U. K.: W. B. Saunders Company Ltd. p. 682. ISBN 0-7020-1799-X.
  10. ^ Hon Delbert Gee Louis Goodman ACBA Podcast on YouTube
  11. ^ "Governor Newsom Announces Judicial Appointments 8.8.22". gov.ca.gov. 9 August 2022. Retrieved 12 November 2022.
  12. ^ a b "Home | Superior Court of California | County of Alameda". www.alameda.courts.ca.gov.
  13. ^ "Love Thy Lawyer".
  14. ^ "Asian American Bar Association". Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 18 November 2010.
  15. ^ "The November 2009 - February 2010 Meetings - Board of Directors Update" (PDF). The ACBA Bulletin. Vol. 41, no. 1. The Alameda County Bar Association. Spring 2010. p. 29. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 14 June 2012.
  16. ^ Gee, Delbert (30 January 2011). "Asian Americans scarce on California courts". SFGATE.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  17. ^ "Immigrant Voices: Discover Immigrant Stories from Angel Island". AIISFIV.org. 4 December 2015.
  18. ^ "Love Thy Lawyer".
  19. ^ "AABA".