EP #477: When a Feminist Judge Writes Her Memoir in Midlife

Women in the Middle®: Loving Life After 50 - Midlife Coach Podcast · Sep 17, 2026 · 40m

Today's guest did something unexpected when she chose to leave her judgeship and follow a new direction in poetry. Her name is Jacqueline St. Joan.

Jackie is a retired lawyer, judge, and law professor, as well as an early feminist activist, community organizer, memoirist and novelist whose path to the bench was anything but planned.

She started her career as a secretary, went to law school at 28 as a divorced mother of two, and ended up representing domestic violence survivors before becoming the first judge in Denver's centralized protection order court. Her outspoken feminism brought public…