Honoree for Sunday, February 9
Judge Gail Brewster Bereola
The Honorable Gail Brewster Bereola is a Judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda. She has been a judge for 21 years. Currently assigned to a Civil Trial and Calendar Department since 2010, she is formerly the Presiding Judge of the Juvenile Court from 2006 to January 2010.Judge Bereola convened Alameda County’s Restorative Juvenile Justice Task Force in 2008. She has since been in the forefront of the movement to institutionalize restorative justice in the county’s schools and justice system.
Prior to her appointment to the bench in 1991, she was a trial lawyer specializing in criminal defense, and a prosecutor. Judge Bereola has served as faculty for judicial education programs and makes frequent presentations as a keynoter, teacher, trainer and panelist in the areas of restorative justice, access to courts, fairness and disability issues, the law as a career, overcoming adversity and other topics.
Judge Bereola has served in several leadership positions with the Superior Court. She has also served as Vice-Chair of the Juvenile Court Judges of California, and is active in a number of other legal and civic organizations, including the California Judges Association, the Charles Houston Bar Association and the National Bar Association, among others.
Judge Bereola received her Juris Doctorate degree in 1979 from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and her B.A. degree in Government in 1976 from the University of San Francisco. Judge Bereola is an active member of Allen Temple Baptist Church for 19 years.
She is a member of Business & Professional Women’s’ Society, an inaugural member of the Allen Temple Persons with Disabilities Ministry and is a faculty member for the Leadership Institute at Allen Temple teaching restorative justice. She is also a former assistant in Allen Temple’s Children’s’ Church.
Judge Bereola is the wife of Reverend Enitan Olu Bereola and they are the parents of four adult children.
