John True
Adjunct Professor John M. True, III is a judge on the Alameda County Superior Court where he has served since 2003. He currently presides over civil trials and other civil proceedings in Department 512 in Hayward.
Before taking the bench, Judge True spent many years practicing labor and employment law on behalf of unions and employees. Right before his judicial appointment, he was a partner at the San Francisco Bay Area firm of Leonard Carder, LLP (from 2000 to 2003), and before that at Rudy Exelrod Zieff & True (1994 to 2000). From 1985 to 1994 he was a Senior Staff Attorney at the San Francisco Legal Aid Society’s Employment Law Center. He began his legal career in 1975 as a Field Attorney in the San Francisco and Oakland offices of the National Labor Relations Board.
Judge True received his law degree from the U.C. Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) in 1975. Prior to law school, Judge True served as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal from 1966 to 1969 and as the Assistant Director of the Peace Corps program in Afghanistan from 1969 to 1972.
During the course of his career, Judge True has taught Employment Law and other courses as an adjunct faculty member at several Bay Area law schools. Most recently (2004-2009), he taught Employment Law at Boalt Hall; he has also taught Negotiations at Hastings College of the Law (2000, 2001) and Labor Law at the University of San Francisco School of Law and Santa Clara University School of Law during the 1980s.
His publications include California Employment Litigation: Strategy and Tactics (LEXIS Law Publishing, 1999, now in third edition) and numerous articles on labor and employment law and alternative dispute resolution. He has been a Fellow in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers since 2001 and was recently elected to the American Law Institute.