The go-to guy in California’s high court headquarters

Frederick K. Ohlrich, the warm-up act for the California Supreme Court, has some advice for nervous lawyers appearing before the seven robed justices.

Don’t call a justice by name. You’ll probably get it wrong. Don’t ask the chief justice how much time you have left. And when your name is called after the justices enter the chambers, answer “Ready,” whether you are or not.

Ohlrich, 67, known around court headquarters here as “Fritz,” is clerk of the California Supreme Court — its keeper of records, its historian and its biggest fan.

The avuncular administrator of the state’s top court calls the cases for monthly oral argument — a hearing that signals a decision is coming soon — and preps the lawyers waiting to make their final pitch to the justices.

“I try to put them at ease,” Ohlrich said. “I like to have them be relaxed and make the best argument they can.”

When the court had only two female justices, male lawyers sometimes mixed them up, addressing Kathryn Mickle Werdegar as “Justice Kennard” and Joyce L. Kennard as “Justice Werdegar.”

The women were not amused.

Ohlrich started warning lawyers in advance about such faux pas, and his admonition has spared many a lawyer a red face and a correction from the court.

He uses lawyers’ gaffes as teaching examples.

During one windup for oral argument, Ohlrich told the hushed room that even former Solicitor General Kenneth Starr had goofed — addressing Justice Ming W. Chin as “Justice Ming.”

Then there was the lawyer from the state attorney general’s office who has argued in front of Chief Justice Ronald M. George for years. “Chief Justice Lucas,” the lawyer began. Malcolm M. Lucas left the court in 1996.

“You can’t get into any trouble by addressing the court as ‘Your honor,’” Ohlrich concludes, peering over glasses perched low on his nose as he stands in front of the hushed courtroom.

But for all his tutoring, lawyers continue to stumble.

After Justice Werdegar once peppered an attorney with questions, he looked up from his notes and turned to answer Justice Carol A. Corrigan at the opposite side of the bench. Corrigan politely listened, pointing to her right until the lawyer got the hint.

When Ohlrich isn’t reporting the missteps of lawyers, he regales the courtroom with history and trivia. The court relocated from Sacramento to San Francisco in the 1800s because the justices said San Francisco had better weather and better whiskey.

Chief Justice George is not only chief justice of the court. He is chief justice of the state of California. Justice Kennard is celebrating her 21st year on the court, “quite a distinction.” California has had 27 chief justices.

And so it goes.

Each side in oral argument has 30 minutes to present a case. Unlike at the U.S. Supreme Court, there is no red, green or yellow light to alert a lawyer to how much time is left. Ohlrich reassures the lawyers that Chief Justice George is “very gentle, typically, in telling you when your time has expired.”

When a well-prepared lawyer earnestly begins, “May it please the court,” he or she quickly learns that the court pleases itself. Questions fly from the bench.

“If you have a well-crafted speech you are planning to give this morning, I wish you the best of luck,” Ohlrich said in one session, grinning and shaking his head. “My best advice is to answer as quickly and succinctly as you can and then quickly launch into your speech before the next question comes.”

When the court was about to issue its historic May 15, 2008, decision legalizing same-sex marriage, Ohlrich had to make sure there were no leaks. He locked copies of the hefty ruling in a closet. His staff is required to sign confidentiality agreements.

Ohlrich said he prefers not to know how the court has ruled on a big case “so I don’t have to worry about saying something I shouldn’t.”

The court typically holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacramento, in addition to San Francisco, and sometimes has special sessions in such places as Fresno, Ventura and San Diego. No oral argument is held during the summer.

Occasionally, Ohlrich’s job is complicated by an attorney who shows up at the wrong court, forcing a rapid reshuffling of the calendar.

“Can you imagine?” Ohlrich said with a frown. “Try to explain that one to a client.”

George tapped Ohlrich for the job in 2000, when Ohlrich was the administrator of the Los Angeles Municipal Court, at the time the bottom of the rung for judges.

Unlike the high court justices, the Muni judges sometimes were jockeying for promotions, Ohlrich said. A hearing involving a celebrity was seen as a steppingstone.

Ohlrich traded in his suburban ranch home in Southern California for a condominium in San Francisco, and his 1 1/2-hour commute for a 15-minute ride to work. After working for 36 years in the California court system, he now earns about $180,000 a year.

He has some regrets. He said he toyed with the idea of photographing the justices at their June 2001 argument but never got around to it. Then “it was too late.”

Justice Stanley Mosk, the court’s liberal lion, had suddenly died. He had served at the court for 37 years.

Ohlrich had waved goodbye to Mosk the evening before, and the image of Mosk hunched over his electric typewriter — never to be traded in for a computer — remains fixed in his mind.

“I can just see him typing on that thing,” said the clerk, lost in his memories.

These days, Ohlrich’s job often involves broadcasting court proceedings to other locations, though sometimes his efforts are for naught.

He remembers accommodating television crews for oral argument in the case of a San Francisco woman who was fatally mauled by a dog as she tried to step into her apartment. He had arranged audio and video feeds to a separate room for the argument.

During the hearing, Ohlrich walked into the room and asked the reporters if they were getting some “sound bites.” They looked back at him with glazed eyes. The court had spent the hour examining the meaning of “implied malice.”

“I didn’t see one clip about the case on TV that night,” he mused.

maura.dolan@latimes.com