In October, Ronit Rubinoff was honored by the Sonoma County Bar Association with its Careers of Distinction award — which almost always goes to private sector attorneys.
Rosendo Padilla was in the audience.
Padilla in 2005 was a Sonoma State University student and a volunteer in Legal Aid’s domestic violence restraining order clinic. After getting a job as the nonprofit’s interpreter/legal assistant, he let Rubinoff know he wanted to become a correctional officer. She urged him to go to law school instead.
The son of Mexican migrant farmworkers, Padilla grew up picking crops in San Benito County. He told Rubinoff he knew no lawyers, let alone any of Mexican descent.
He still recalls Rubinoff’s response.
“She, in a very kind way and not in these words, said, ‘Shut up.’ You can do whatever you want to do, and we’re going to make sure you do,” he said.
“It was that type of encouragement, the kind that, you know, sometimes as a young adult, you need someone to tell you, ‘Don’t be afraid to chase something,’ especially when you come from a background where you might have not had all that support from professionals,” Padilla said.
“It was, ‘You’re going to do it,’” he said. ”Not ’You can do it,’ but ‘You’re going to do it.’“
Rubinoff continued to encourage Padilla to set his sights on the law. In March, he was sworn in as a San Mateo County Superior Court Judge. She attended via Zoom.
“I’m really, really proud of incubating new people to come into the field,” she said.
You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 707-387-2960 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @jeremyhay