Jess E. Stephens (May 4, 1882 – December 2, 1953) was an American attorney who was noted for his legal work on behalf of an important traffic tunnel project in Los Angeles and for a union railroad station there, as well as his handling of claims against the city after the collapse of the Saint Francis Dam.

In February 1900 he was graduated from Los Angeles High School, and then he studied law with a firm of attorneys and at Stanford University.

[1][2][3][4] He was married to Alice Bernice Cherry of Iowa and Illinois in the Pico Heights Congregational Church on September 1 or 18, 1907, and they had two children.

[1][2] Stephens was admitted to the bar in 1904 after undergoing the last oral examination ever conducted by the California Supreme Court.

[12][13] In December 1937 he was appointed by Governor Frank Merriam to the Los Angeles Superior Court, along with Clement Nye and Benjamin Scheinman.