Judge Ann Chargin: Breaking Barriers and Changing Lives

By Jo Ann Kirby

The first woman to serve as a judge in San Joaquin County points out the yellowed newspaper clipping. At the remarkable age of 101, the retired Honorable Judge Ann Chargin is happy to look back on her storied career. With bright blue eyes, sharp and twinkling, she sees the best in those years and doesn’t want to dwell on any obstacles in the path of a trailblazer who made her mark in a male-dominated profession.

“Lodi Woman First Lawyer on Public Defender’s Staff” reads one headline from the Lodi News-Sentinel on January 17, 1964. Another from February 13, 1973, in the Sacramento Union is titled “Ann Chargin: A Tigress on Defense.” And then there is this one, from the Stockton Record on October 18, 1975: “Municipal Judge Ann Chargin Sworn In.”

Her legacy was enshrined when Humphreys established a law school hall of fame and she was recognized as one of the first inductees in 2008. This year, the San Joaquin Bar Association named Honorable Ann Chargin as their Law Day Award recipient, and the carved glass award has a place of honor in her Stockton home. “She affected young women like me, teaching us how to try cases with the utmost attention to detail and have the highest integrity and commitment to the rule of law,” Honorable Linda Loftus said in introducing her at Law Day. “Who knows what she would have accomplished in our legal world had she remained on the bench. She is a legacy. Our bench in San Joaquin County now consists of 13 women out of 31.”

Judge Chargin’s lifelong motto served her well from the start. “It’s like starting out on a journey with no predetermined destination and where the journey carries you depends on the choice you make at each fork in the road,” she said of the words she lives by.

And what a trip it’s been. She started out in Springfield, Massachusetts, the daughter of hardworking Italian American immigrants. While she had an interest in the legal profession during high school, her first career was as a competitive roller-skating coach. Her skaters included national champions as well as state and regional titleholders.

She thought she would continue coaching, but when she made her move to California, the season was already well underway. “It was the wrong time, they had already hired their coaching staff,” she said. She brushed up on her shorthand and typing and looked in a new direction. She had three job offers. “I accepted a job in a labor relations office. My boss was in his first year of law school,” she said, of a position that didn’t pay as much as the others but seemed to offer more promise. “My boss asked me to type something up for his class and he noticed I had an interest in law.” He would encourage her to go to law school. She went to Humphreys in Stockton, now known as Humphreys University Laurence Drivon School of Law. There, she was one of just three women in a cohort of 24 students. She passed the bar in 1962 and met the man who would become her husband, Robert Chargin, at the law firm Chargin & Briscoe, where she started her career in law. At 44, she became a working mother after she gave birth to the couple’s son, Nicholas. Her husband, who passed away in 2006, had served as San Joaquin County public defender until 1989.
Her career has some impressive notables. Following her work as an associate at Chargin & Briscoe, she became a deputy public defender and then an assistant public defender. She argued cases before the Supreme Court. Governor Jerry Brown appointed her to the bench as a Stockton Municipal Court judge and two years later, she ran for election and won a six-year term.

She was named an appellate justice pro tempore to the Fifth District Court of Appeal, she served two terms on the Judicial Council of California and she was appointed to the California Council on Criminal Justice. In the community, her many commitments include serving on the board of directors for the Stockton Symphony and the Stockton Opera Guild. She even taught bridge for 20 years at the Delta College’s Stockton Institute for Continued Learning.

Today, she still lives independently with her cat, Daisy. “This is my third Daisy,” she said. Incredibly, she makes the drive on the congested Bay Area freeways to visit her son in San Jose and is a proud grandmother. She spends time visiting with friends, playing bridge several times a week and worships at St. Bernadette’s Catholic church.

Does she have advice for young women? “I was always biting my tongue,” she said. “Just always be businesslike and professional. Let it be known that you know what you’re doing and that you won’t be taken advantage of.”

While some of the roles she held seem much more prominent than others, she is proud of the work she did as a public defender to provide effective counsel. “It’s so important,” she said. And she remarks that it is fortuitous that all those years ago, when she faced a fork in the road, she took the lower-paying job that eventually led her to a rich and rewarding career.

How does she want to be remembered? “I always worked hard and I hope they say that I was someone they could trust,” she affirmed.