President Richard Nixon appointed J. Clifford Wallace to be a U.S. district judge in San Diego in 1970, and within two years Nixon elevated Wallace to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. More than 52 years later and after three near misses for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, Wallace is still a sitting judge on the 9th Circuit, making him the longest-serving circuit court judge in the nation’s history. Wallace was born in San Diego and has lived here all his life except for his time in the Navy and law school in Berkeley. He took senior status in 1996 following a five-year term as chief judge of the 9th Circuit, meaning he has worked a lighter caseload than the circuit’s active judges for nearly three decades. But at 96 years old, he still takes on half of a full caseload, working nearly every day in downtown San Diego in the same fourth-floor chambers at the Edward J. Schwartz Courthouse that he has occupied since 1975 when the building was completed. “He is the Eighth Wonder of the legal world,” recently retired U.S. District Judge Larry Burns said, noting Wallace’s accomplishments as well as his longevity. “He really is a legend in our judiciary.” Wallace is currently the ninth longest-serving federal judge in U.S. history when taking into account service time at any level, whether a district court, a circuit court or the Supreme Court. If he follows his current plan to retire at 100, he’ll step down having served longer than any other federal judge in the nation’s history save for one — though he acknowledges he might continue past the century mark if he still feels as though his mind is sharp enough. “I can continue on as long as I’m functional,” Wallace said during a recent interview in his chambers, where his dark green carpet and light green sofa chairs act as a time portal to the 1970s. “I’m in here every day to go to work.” Senior U.S. Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace works nearly every day in the same chambers he has kept since 1975. (Alejandro Tamayo / The San Diego Union-Tribune) “He’s as mentally nimble today as he was 20 years ago,” Burns said. But why, in the twilight of his life, does Wallace continue on the bench? “It isn’t that I don’t love my wife, and it isn’t that I don’t like my home — it’s on the beach, and the beach is what I love,” Wallace said. “It’s just that this is something that I feel I can do. And you ask yourself, ‘Well, if you can do it and it’s needed, why aren’t you down there (in your chambers) doing it?’ And so I come down.” San Diego by birth and choice Wallace was born in December 1928 in San Diego. His father immigrated to the U.S. from Canada with a third-grade education and a drinking problem, and Wallace grew up in what he describes as a low-income area of eastern San Diego. At 14, he was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a decision that has shaped his life ever since. Wallace got his first job while still in elementary school, selling magazines door to door. He later got a better-paying job delivering San Diego Union newspapers. Senior U.S. Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace credits his time in the Navy with teaching him the discipline and academic excellence needed to become an attorney. (Photo courtesy of Judge Wallace) He graduated from Hoover High School, spent three years as a sailor in the Navy and then returned home to attend what was then known as San Diego State College. He graduated in 1952 with an economics degree and went on to earn a law degree in 1955 from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California Berkeley. He said that soon thereafter, he turned down a position with the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division to instead take a civil litigation job at what was then the largest private firm in San Diego, where he eventually became a partner. Wallace is twice widowed — both wives died of cancer — but has been married to Dixie Jenee Robison Wallace for the past 22 years. He has 15 children, 51 grandchildren and 75 great-grandchildren. Not all are biologically related, but “We don’t believe in ‘steps,’” Wallace said. “They’re all my kids. They’re all my grandkids.” It was during his first marriage that Wallace received advice that still guides his life. He was gaining prominence as a civil litigator and growing his family when LDS church officials asked him to serve in an important volunteer leadership position helping to oversee several LDS congregations in San Diego. He was struggling to imagine how he would find time to balance each role when one of his church leaders told him to prioritize family first and church second, and to earn a living if he had any time left over. “He wasn’t telling me I was to fail (as a lawyer), he was telling me what’s important,” Wallace recalled nearly seven decades later. “I’m supposed to be successful in all three, but you have an order. And I followed them. And I’ve never shortchanged a case that I had as a lawyer or as a judge. There was always time. But I don’t play golf (or have other hobbies). There’s a lot of other things I don’t do that I’d like to do, because I focused on the things that are most important.” The federal judiciary Wallace said he had a chance to become a judge in state court in the late 1960s but turned down the opportunity amid whispers that he might soon get a shot at the federal bench. But even that was not an easy decision for a prominent civil litigator at a big private firm. “I had to pray about that because I was going to take a 50% cut in my income,” Wallace said. In October 1970, he was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as a judge in the Southern District of California. “I started teaching law school at night to make up for (the pay cut) as much as I could.” He was elevated to the 9th Circuit in June 1972. Four years later, while participating in a program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., he began studying judicial administration, which remains the focus of his career to this day. “Judicial administration is just a nice name for a plumber,” Wallace said. “You’re just trying to make the machine work better.” He said his interest in an effective judiciary is so intense that “when I became chief judge (of the 9th Circuit), that was like going to heaven.” Judicial efficiency was also at the heart of Wallace’s dealings with foreign judiciaries as he traveled around the world helping improve the legal systems in 72 nations. In a 2020 profile of Wallace celebrating his 50th year as a federal judge, retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy praised Wallace as a “pillar of the rule of law, not just in the United States, but worldwide.” Said Kennedy: “He brought the rule of law, the idea of justice, the ideal of the dignity of judicial service halfway around the world. … There has been no judge, in my experience, in this country or any other country that has done as much as he has.” Wallace said he sometimes ponders what his life would have been like if he’d been appointed to the Supreme Court, but he’s content with the important work he continues to do on the 9th Circuit. (Alejandro Tamayo / The San Diego Union-Tribune) Wallace was viewed as a finalist to become a Supreme Court justice on three separate occasions in the 1970s and 1980s, according to news accounts from the time. In 1975, the seat went instead to John Paul Stevens. In 1981 Wallace was reportedly the No. 1 choice of President Ronald Reagan to fill a newly vacated seat, according to an Associated Press story from the time. But Reagan had previously promised while campaigning to seat the first woman on the Supreme Court and ultimately ended up appointing Sandra Day O’Connor. Wallace was again a finalist in 1987 when Reagan picked Kennedy, then a colleague of Wallace’s on the 9th Circuit. Though Wallace is a Republican, many of his most newsworthy rulings have not always hewed conservative. As part of three-judge panels on the 9th Circuit, he sided with environmental groups who sued SeaWorld over its orca-catching practices, according to contemporary news accounts. He also sided with the government when it wanted to put female marine biologists on all-male tuna boat crews as observers to ensure the tuna boats were not killing porpoises. In 2018, Wallace authored a unanimous opinion against conservative firebrand Joseph Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona, whose office had been sued for racial profiling. In 2019, Wallace penned the majority decision in a 2-1 ruling that blocked a proposed Trump administration rule that would have allowed employers, citing religious exemptions, to opt out of an “Obamacare” regulation that requires employee health plans to include birth control coverage. Longevity and legacy When Burns stepped down as a district judge in San Diego last year, he received a letter from Wallace. “I read in the Union-Tribune about your retirement. Aren’t you a little young to be retiring?” Wallace joked. Burns knows Wallace has often been asked his secret to such longevity. Burns attributed it to Wallace’s “very good physical shape,” noting that Wallace is a regular at the gym built into the basement of the courthouse. He also mentioned Wallace’s faith — members of the LDS church generally don’t smoke and don’t consume alcohol or coffee — and his work. “He keeps his mind very, very active,” Burns said. “There’s been no drop off at all in our interactions.” Wallace has received some of the most prestigious legal awards a judge can earn, but as to what kind of legacy he hopes to leave, he wants to be remembered simply as someone who did the best he could. “Whether it’s in family, or in my religion, or in my profession as a lawyer and as a judge, that I’ve sincerely tried my best to do everything as best I could,” Wallace said. “And I know I’m not perfect, but I feel comfortable that I’ve tried as best I could, and given it my all.”