Judge Jessner was appointed by the Supreme Court as a CJEO member in 2017 and currently serves on the CJEO Executive Committee. Judge Jessner was appointed to the Los Angeles Superior Court in 2007 and now serves as the Presiding Judge of that court. She previously served as the Assistant Presiding Judge, the Supervising Judge of the Civil Division, the Assistant Supervising Judge of the Civil Division and the Supervising Judge of the Mental Health Courthouse. She also served in the Criminal Division.
Judge Jessner has served as a Co-Chair of the Technology Committee and leads the court’s technology innovation efforts. Her dedication to court technology innovation was recognized by the American Bar Association when she was selected as one of 12 recipients of the ABA’s Legal Technology Resource Center’s 2021 Women of Legal Tech annual recognition. She has served on many court committees including as Chair of the Civil and Small Claims Committee, Chair of the court’s Bench-Bar Committee, Vice-Chair of the Ethics Committee, a member of the Civil subcommittee of the Operational Planning Committee, the governing committee of the Judicial Education Committee, and the Civil subcommittee of the Judicial Education Committee, among others.
Judge Jessner is also is a member of the Information Technology Advisory Committee of the Judicial Council. Judge Jessner is a New Judge Orientation Instructor for CJER. She is also an instructor for CJER’s ethics curriculum and serves on the Qualifying Ethics Work Group that develops and designs ethics curriculum. In addition, Judge Jessner teaches the Civil Law Update and Basic Civil Law Overview seminars for the Rutter Group. She is also a founding member of the Association of African American California Judicial Officers, a member of the National Association of Women Judges, and a member of The Trusteeship, which is the Southern California chapter of the International Women’s Forum.
Prior to joining the court, Judge Jessner was an Assistant United States Attorney with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California (Los Angeles) for approximately 11 years. Judge Jessner started her legal career as a litigation associate with the Los Angeles Office of Sheppard Mullin. In between two tenures at the United States Attorney’s Office, she was in-house counsel for The Boeing Company and an Assistant Inspector General for the Los Angeles Police Commission. Judge Jessner earned a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and a law degree from Berkeley Law.