Herma Hill Kay

Few figures shaped Berkeley Law — or modern family law — as profoundly as Herma Hill Kay. Over nearly six decades on the faculty, she helped transform American law governing marriage and divorce, played a lead role in defining the study of sex discrimination in legal scholarship, and later became the school’s first woman dean. Her scholarship, public service, and institutional leadership left a lasting imprint on both the law and the law school.

A pioneering scholar of family law and gender equality, Kay co‑authored the nation’s first casebook on sex discrimination with future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She was also the main driver of the California Family Law Act of 1969, which established the nation’s first modern no‑fault divorce framework and influenced reforms across the country.

Kay joined Berkeley Law at a time when very few women held positions on American law school faculties. Only the second woman professor hired by the school, she became one of the institution’s most influential scholars and leaders.

“It is unusual to be a top scholar in two different fields,” said the late Stephen Sugarman, her former Berkeley Law colleague and fellow family law scholar. “Herma was that rare academic who was a leading figure in at least three: family law, conflict of laws, and sex-based discrimination.”

Kay’s influence extended beyond scholarship into the structure of American family law itself. A co-reporter on the commission that drafted California’s landmark Family Law Act of 1969, she helped establish the nation’s first no-fault divorce framework — which reshaped the legal rules governing marriage and divorce and became a model for legislation across the country.

“In the late 1960s and 1970s, as a revolution in substantive sex equality was sweeping California, Herma was at its center,” then-Berkeley Law Professor Melissa Murray said at a 2016 California Law Review symposium dedicated to Kay’s work. “She literally transformed the legal landscape of American family life.”

Ginsburg said Kay consistently worked to make marriage and divorce safer and fairer for women. Kay also contributed significantly to the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act, which helped establish national standards for no-fault divorce.

Her leadership included service as president of the Association of American Law Schools and top roles in organizations including the American Law Institute. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and became widely respected for her impact on legal scholarship and legal education.

At Berkeley Law, Kay also helped shape the institution itself. As dean from 1992 to 2000, she guided the school through a challenging period marked by budget constraints and significant policy changes in California. During her tenure the school expanded its curriculum, strengthened its faculty, and substantially grew its clinical programs.

One of her most important institutional achievements was launching the Center for Clinical Education, which helped establish Berkeley as one of the first leading law schools to place hands-on client representation at the center of legal training. Today Berkeley Law’s clinical programs are widely recognized as among the strongest in the country.

Kay was also a leading advocate for diversity in legal education. Berkeley Law Professor Pamela Samuelson said she inspired “thousands of women” over the course of her career. Samuelson and her husband Robert Glushko endowed the annual Herma Hill Kay Memorial Lecture, which honors Kay’s legacy and commitment to expanding opportunity in the legal profession.

Ginsburg delivered the inaugural lecture in 2019 in conversation with Berkeley Law Professor Amanda Tyler, one of Ginsburg’s former clerks and a longtime admirer of Kay.

Long before she reshaped family law and led Berkeley Law, Kay was a determined student growing up in South Carolina, the only child of a minister and a schoolteacher. When a sixth grade civics teacher told her that if she were his daughter he would send her to law school, Kay’s mother initially resisted the idea — telling her that women could not make a living as lawyers. 

Kay proved otherwise. After graduating from Southern Methodist University, she enrolled at the University of Chicago Law School in 1956. There, she became an editor of the law review and worked closely with Professor Brainerd Currie, co-authoring two influential articles with him. She later clerked for California Supreme Court Justice Roger Traynor before joining Berkeley Law’s faculty.

Over the decades that followed, Kay became known not only for her scholarship and leadership but also for her mentorship. Generations of students and colleagues described her as thoughtful, steady, and generous with her time and advice.

“Herma filled every role we aspire to,” Berkeley Law Professor Robert Merges said. “Mentor, teacher, scholar, leader. And in almost every role she was the first woman to dare to do it.”

Kay remained active in teaching and faculty life well into the later years of her career, with colleagues often remarking on her optimism and commitment to the institution she helped build.

“Herma radiated a positivity, a sort of can-do attitude that drew people to her,” Tyler said. “She kept coming to faculty meetings and she kept teaching, right up until the end.”

For generations of Berkeley Law students and faculty, Kay set the standard for what a scholar, teacher, and leader could be. Her influence can still be felt across the law school she helped guide and the legal landscape she helped transform.

About the Series

The Legends of Berkeley Law series highlights scholars whose ideas helped establish one of the world’s most intellectually influential law schools. Through pathbreaking research, innovative teaching, and institutional leadership, these faculty members reshaped major fields of law and inspired generations of lawyers, judges, policymakers, and academics.