About Agatha Hoff

Agatha Hoff fled war-torn Hungary during World War II with her family at the age of 10, eventually settling in San Francisco, which she still calls home. She graduated from the Sacred Heart Schools and Seattle University on full scholarship and received her law degree from San Francisco Law School. Early in her legal career, Agatha worked in poverty law where clients often abandoned her for a "real lawyer" (someone they paid). When she became a real lawyer, her personal injury clients termed it "the armpit of the law." When she was appointed a court commissioner, her favorite moniker was a "fascist terrorist cross-dressed in the cloak of justice." When at last a British tourist called her "Your Worship," she thought she'd retire before it went to her head. She celebrated her retirement by going skydiving. After raising her four children and dispensing justice, Agatha found time to take long bike rides and write a regular column for the San Francisco Bar Association's quarterly magazine, as well as a book about her mother's Holocaust survival story, Burning Horses: A Hungarian Life Turned Upside Down. Her latest book, Judge* Hoff, Jesus Loves You, but the Rest of Us Think You're an A**hole! is a compilation of her "Tales from the Bench" columns for San Francisco Attorney Magazine. A lifelong community volunteer, she has worked with Suicide Prevention, Food Runners, the neonatal nursery at San Francisco General Hospital and the Volunteer Legal Services Program of the San Francisco Bar Association. Agatha is also an avid long-distance cyclist, averaging 5,000 miles a year in the Bay Area, as well as in many national and international locales. She lives with her husband, Irwin, in close proximity to the Golden Gate Bridge, where she can be seen riding on a regular basis.