Author | Speaker | Mediator | Arbitrator
John Kralik
I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and went to grade school there and in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I graduated from Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills, Ohio, and then attended the University of Michigan, from which I received a B.A. (1975) and then a J.D. (1979). After that, I practiced law in Los Angeles for 30 years, including at the firms of Hughes Hubbard & Reed, Miller Tokuyama, Kralik & Sur and Kralik & Jacobs, as well as on my own as Kralik & Associates. In September 2009, I was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger to be a Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court. In June 2025, I retired from the Superior Court after 16 years. I’m hoping to do more writing, to finish my divinity degree, and to find new work, perhaps as an arbitrator or mediator.
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An Author’s Blog
Focusing on Big Goals
My previous blogs have focused on a proven system of daily, task-driven organization that my father attempted to teach me in the 1960’s and ‘70’s. My retirement last month was a chance to regret how much more I could have accomplished over the course of my life had I...
Redesigning the Focus on the Six Most Important Things.
My last blog concerned the $400,000 secret my father left in the family garage when he died. I wrote of how he disciplined himself to write out the six most important things he had to do every day, in order of their importance. If any item remained undone at the end...
THE $4OO, OOO SECRET MY DAD TRIED TO TEACH ME
With aging, each passing day brings greater urgency to get things done in the inexorably evaporating time of my life. Not just all the things I must do for my job but also the things I must do to nourish family relationships, and just to keep my head above the...
Let’s not replace the lawyers.
The advent of ChatGPT has provoked what can only be described as panic about artificial intelligence (“AI”). The most notable instance is the open letter signed by over 2,000 very smart people at the Future for Life website, calling for a six-month pause in...
What are people for? My first close encounter with ChatGPT
The advent of ChatGPT has caused the resurgence of the alarm that began with the invention of computers. If we can all be replaced by computers, what then are people for? What are people for? The first time I felt dread from this question was more than 50 years ago,...
The Song that Inspired Me to Let my Freak Flag Fly
In the spring of 1970, David Crosby’s voice persuaded me to stop cutting my hair. Before 1965, my hair had been short, but I was satisfied with it. The barber shop was a friendly place, and a young man could expect to read an entire good comic book and chew a few pieces of sugary bubble gum while waiting.
In the Inland Empire, A Few Good Men. (F3 Continued.)
In my last blog, I explained how I had come across F3, a workout group that seeks to foster the three “F’s” of fitness, fellowship, and faith. There are 3,500 such groups in the United States. There are none in Los Angeles. I thought briefly of filling the L.A. void...
F3: Combatting the Sad Clown Syndrome
On September 25, 2022, I read an article in the New York Times entitled "For Suburban Texas Men, a Workout Craze with a Side of Faith" by Ruth Graham. Two things about the article struck me. First, the fiery epicenter of “F3,” the faith-influenced workout "craze" to...
The Loss of My Mother
My mother, Rita Hennessey Kralik, died February 15, 2022. Though I managed a eulogy, I’ve avoided reflection on her death since that date. Perhaps now it is time to try as there will be holidays without her. The fact of her absence cannot be erased by any amount of...