Candace J. Heisler

Adjunct Professor Candace J. Heisler is a 1972 graduate of the College.  She has been an adjunct professor for more than  20 years.  She was an Assistant District Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco for over 25 years, during which time she headed the Domestic Violence, Misdemeanor, Preliminary Hearing, and Charging Units.  She has particular expertise in the areas of elder abuse and domestic violence.

Professor Heisler has edited numerous judicial and prosecution curricula on domestic violence and elder abuse.  She has helped develop and tested several curricula on elder abuse for the American Bar Association.  She has authored a number of  published articles on domestic violence and elder abuse, including several in the Journal of Elder Abuse and Neglect, wrote the chapter “Elder Abuse” in Victims of Crime, 3d Edition,  and is a co-author of  Elder Abuse: Detection and Intervention. She has also helped to develop six telecourses for California law enforcement in these areas.  She currently consults and conducts training for a wide variety of professionals and organizations throughout the nation.

She was the chairperson of the California District Attorney Association's Domestic Violence Committee from its creation until her retirement from the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office.

Professor Heisler has served as a Board member of the National Committee for the Prevention of Elder Abuse and a member of the California Violence Against Women Act STOP Task Force.  She has received the Governor’s Victim Services Award, the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women Leadership Award, and the California Crime Victims United “Prosecutor of the Year” Award. She was honored for her work in San Francisco with the naming of “Candace Heisler” Day.  In 1998, the California District Attorney’s Association awarded her its Career Achievement Award. That same year she was honored by the Clara Foltz Feminist Association. She has received the National College of District Attorneys' Stephen L. Von Riesen Lecturer of Merit Award and its Distinguished Faculty Award.

A former President of the Hastings Alumni Association, she was the 1993 Hastings College of the Law “Alumna of the Year.”