Orfa Jean Shontz

Orfa Jean Shontz (November 1, 1876 – May 6, 1954) was an American attorney and Municipal Judge.

[5][6] From 1911 to 1914, while still a law student, she became one of the first female probation officers of the Los Angeles County Juvenile Court.

[5] She created an all-female court, with a homelike atmosphere, to make women feel comfortable, and especially girls involved in sex cases to have the privacy she felt they were entitled to.

[3] When she resigned from the Juvenile Court in 1920, her position was taken over by Miriam Van Waters, her close friend.

[5] In 1920 she was named City Clerk of Los Angeles but resigned soon to enter private law practice.

In 1934 she won the general election in California for the State Board of Equalization District 4 for the Democratic Party, 48.3% against 47%, serving a four-year term.

[2] In the 1920s Shontz, Van Waters, Van Waters' friends Sara Fisher and Emily "Pole" Reynolds, a teacher of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Elizabeth "Bess" Woods, founder of the educational-research department for the Los Angeles Board of Education, all lived in a group of residences called the Colony, between Los Angeles and Pasadena.