Honorees

Hon. Madge Bradley

1904-2000

Born in Ukiah, California on November 14, 1904, Madge Bradley was the second of five children born to Hugh and Bertha Bradley.   Her father emigrated from England and met her mother at an English settlement in Oceanside, California.  After a brief time grape farming in Northern California, the family returned to Oceanside when Madge was 6.  She graduated from Oceanside-Carlsbad Union High School in 1922, and began working for Union Title Insurance and Trust Company in San Diego. 

With the encouragement of a former salesman from LaSalle Extension University in Chicago, Madge began taking correspondence courses.  She would awake early to study law before going to work, debating the material with her mother whom she referred to as her “only classmate.”  In 1927 she was hired by the San Diego County clerk’s office and became the clerk in charge of passports and naturalization records. She passed the California bar exam in 1933 and was admitted to practice on June 9, 1933.

Because of financial pressures during the Great Depression, Madge did not begin to practice law until 1940, when she took a year leave of absence to work with a firm helping clients prove their citizenship, and landlords evict undesirable tenants.  In 1942, Madge Bradley opened her own practice, specializing in adoptions, domestic relations, probate and guardianship work.  She chaired the first Community Welfare Council’s Adoption Study Committee.  This committee was instrumental in changing California adoption laws and making San Diego the first in the state to receive a license to operate an adoption agency.

Madge Bradley blazed a number of trails, including being the first woman on the Board of Directors of the San Diego County Bar Association, the first San Diego County woman to be appointed to a State Bar Committee, the first woman in San Diego to serve as a judge, and the first woman to preside over San Diego’s Municipal Court.

Judge Bradley took her oath of office on November 16, 1953.  Being the first woman on the bench was not easy.  Often litigants would ask for reassignment to another judge, and another judge purposefully held judicial meetings at the Grant Grill where women were not allowed.   The newspaper focused on her attire and hobbies.  Over time, Judge Bradley earned a reputation of being firm, fair and well-liked.  She was re-elected three times in uncontested elections before retiring on December 1, 1971.  It would take fourteen months after she retired before the second woman was appointed to the San Diego bench.

Judge Bradley continued with her community activities, becoming the first chair of the Woman’s Division of the San Diego Traffic Safety Council.  She was named San Diego “Woman of the Year” in 1953.  In 1995, the Madge Bradley Building was named for this trail blazing woman lawyer, and is today where domestic violence and probate cases are heard.

<– Back to Honorees