The Remarkable Career of the Only Woman Referee in the 1950s and ‘60s

By Hon. Cynthia A. Norton & Hon. Laurel M. Isicoff, Co-Chairs, 100^th Anniversary Committee

Last week, we wrote about the first annual meeting ever held by our association in San Diego, in 1964, which was judged by all to be a great success. Perhaps a factor in the meeting’s success was that it was co-hosted by the Hon. Arline Martin Rossi, the first woman bankruptcy referee ever appointed in the Ninth Circuit.

Then, as now, the National Association of Referees in Bankruptcy (“NARB”) published quarterly journals, and including a section introducing newly appointed referees. Many of the introductions from that period were short, one paragraph descriptions of the referee’s education, marital status, number of children, and previous legal or other professional experience. Judge Rossi’s introduction, published in the NARB Journal of April 1960, was an astounding five paragraphs, detailing her many accomplishments before being appointed.

Judge Rossi “became the only woman referee when she was appointed in November 1959, to service in the southern district of California at San Diego.” She was born in Escondido, California on April 25, 1909, as a third generation native Californian on her mother’s side, with an English father who later became a naturalized American citizen.

Judge Rossi showed academic prowess at an early age, graduating as valediction of the Calexico Union High School, and receiving her bachelor’s degree from San Diego State College, where she edited the college newspaper.  Judge Rossi attended the University of Southern California Law School and served as the secretary of law review. She received her LLB in 1941 and was admitted to the California Bar the same year.

 After law school, Judge Rossi clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge Albert Stephens, then worked for the City of Los Angeles as enforcement attorney for the Office of Price Administration, until 1945. That year, she became a member of the staff of Fairfield Publications, described as a group of national newspapers and magazines for the fashion industry.

She returned to law in 1948 as an AUSA for the S.D. of California, serving in that capacity under four U.S. Attorneys until 1954. Judge Rossi was described as being responsible for “much important government litigation, both civil and criminal, in the trial and appellate courts.” As a measure of the importance of the litigation she handled, the Department of Justice sent her to Japan for four weeks in 1950 to take depositions in actions filed against the Secretary of State by dual citizens under the Nationality Act of 1950. In addition to immigration matters, she also handled government claims in complex bankruptcy matters. At the time of her selection as a referee, Judge Rossi was married to Remo Rossi, a professor of foreign languages (French, Italian and Spanish) at the high school and college level, and was described as a “Democrat, an Episcopalian and a member of the Professional Women’s Club,” in that order.  

Judge Rossi served as a referee for almost ten years until she retired in September 1969 and had a very active career. As we mentioned in last week’s article, Judge Rossi was NARB’s Ninth Circuit Director by as early as 1964. ABA Business Lawyer publications from the time show she was one of very few – if not the only – women members of the ABA’s Corporation, Bankruptcy and Business Law section, serving on the Consumer Bankruptcy Committee. The University of San Diego Law School published a press release in the early 1960s advertising a bankruptcy seminar she was presenting with other (male) panelists. (As an aside, how many women lawyers or judges did we see presenting at bankruptcy  seminars even as late as the 1990s?) Judge Rossi, described as a “senior referee” by 1968, was interviewed and cited with authority in a Note published in the San Diego Law Review entitled “Chapter XIII of the Bankruptcy Act, As Maine Goes, So Should the Nation.” The Note authors credit her remark “that use of a Chapter XIII, Wage Earner Plan, when the debtor has only a small amount of debts will preserve the remedy of straight bankruptcy for a day when needed.”

After Judge Rossi’s appointment in 1959, it would not be for another twenty or more years that another woman would be appointed as bankruptcy referee or bankruptcy judge; only three women were appointed in the 1970s; 37 in the 1980s; and 33 in the 1990s.

Friends, come help us celebrate the legacy of so many of our important trailblazers of all genders and backgrounds at our annual meeting this October in San Diego. Don’t miss it!

Old Calexico High School circa 1930