SACRAMENTO, CA - The California State Assembly recognized Judge Donna J. Hitchens’ extraordinary accomplishments today as a Presiding Judge for the Superior Court of San Francisco County, by naming her Assembly District 13’s “Woman of the Year.” During her career, Judge Hitchens has worked tirelessly to improve low and moderate income people’s access to the courts and to improve services for at risk youth exposed to violence at home and in the community

“Judge Donna Hitchens is one of those extraordinary individuals we rarely come across in our lifetimes,” said Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). “She has put her time and talents to use for those that need them most— foster youth, young people exposed to violence and low-income families. She has touched the lives of so many throughout the Bay Area., I was proud to honor her today,” he said.

Judge Hitchens’ work to improve the accessibility of the legal system for low-income families and children includes the establishment of coordinated youth services and a mandatory training program for juvenile court attorneys and peer review procedures to ensure the best possible services are provided to young people. In collaboration with the Bar Association of San Francisco, she established the court’s Family Law Self-Help Center. Additionally, Judge Hitchens worked closely with the Child Trauma Research Project and the University of California San Francisco forensic psychiatry program to ensure services such as neutral custody evaluations were available to families who could least afford them.

Judge Hitchens has also worked with court staff, the Bar Association of San Francisco, San Francisco agencies and various community organizations to improve services for the dependency court and foster children. For the past seven years, she has chaired the San Francisco Safe Start Initiative which has significantly improved services to young children exposed to violence in the home and in the community. She received the 2001 Benjamin Aranda Access to Justice Award for her efforts to improve access to the courts for low and moderate income people and the 2002 Judicial Officer of the Year Award from the Family Law Section of the State Bar of California.

Since being elected to the Superior Court in 1990, Donna Hitchens has served as Presiding Judge, a trial judge in the Civil and Criminal Divisions and as Supervising Judge of the Unified Family Court. She is a former member of the Judicial Council and the Advisory Committee on Access and Fairness in the Courts and currently chairs the Science & the Law Education Committee. Judge Hitchens graduated from Boalt Hall School of Law in 1977. She previously received her master’s degree in Counseling and Psychological Services from Springfield College.