Judge Lilian S. Shek

Judge Lilian S. Shek

CLEO 1973

“I attended the CLEO Institute at the University of Washington in Seattle in the summer of 1973. It was an extremely valuable experience for me in preparing for the rigors of law school. I had excellent law school professors for instructors who went well beyond their call of duties to educate, stimulate, and inculcate my mind in the analytical and intellectual process. CLEO set the foundation from where I moved forward to achieve my educational and professional goals as a law school graduate, an attorney, a law professor, a bar and community leader, a gubernatorial appointee, and an administrative law judge.”


Judge Lilian S. Shek served as an Administrative Law Judge from April 1992 to 2003, and as an Administrative Law Judge II from 2003 to November 2004, and from January 2008 to 2012. She retired from that position on December 31, 2012. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed her as a Board Member to the Public Employment Relations Board on November 2, 2004, and the State Senate confirmed her appointment in March 2005. She served in that capacity until her term expired on December 31, 2007. In 1994, California Governor Pete Wilson appointed her to the Governor’s Advisory Selection Committee, the Regents of the University of California.

Before April 1992, Judge Shek was an attorney in private law practice, an assistant professor and lecturer of business law at California State University, Sacramento; a hearing officer for the Sacramento County Civil Service Commission; and a judge pro tem for the Small Claims Department of Sacramento County Superior and Municipal Courts. She was also an assistant counsel for the California Farm Bureau Federation and received a Reginald Heber Smith Community Lawyer Fellowship to serve as a staff attorney for the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation and Legal Services of Northern California.

Judge Shek was actively involved in several professional organizations. She was a Barrister of the Anthony M. Kennedy American Inns of Court; Chair of the California State Bar Committee on Women in the Law; President of Women Lawyers of Sacramento; and a member of the American Women Judges Delegation to the People’s Republic of China.

Judge Shek earned a BA degree in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley; a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from Hastings College of the Law, University of California; and a Masters of Business Administration degree from California State University, Sacramento. Judge Shek is married to Sacramento Superior Court Judge Renard F. Shepard (CLEO 1972), and they have two adult sons.