A. Gorenfeld, 86; L.A. Court Commissioner

Abraham Gorenfeld, a Kansas farm boy who grew up to become an outspoken and acerbic but highly respected court commissioner able to interrupt acrimonious divorce hearings to conduct weddings, has died. He was 86.

Gorenfeld died of natural causes Sunday in San Pedro, said his nephew, Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner David A. Ziskrout.

In 1984, when he was a Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner in Torrance, Gorenfeld told The Times, “It’s the only thing we do in this court that pleases everyone. We like to spread a little joy around. Most of the things we do here bring only grief.”

He had just performed a wedding ceremony and led applause for the couple, grudgingly joined by parties in the divorce case he was hearing. Every engaged couple, he suggested, should spend a little time in a divorce court just to see what problems might lie ahead, adding: “They all begin beautifully, with flowers and music, but too many end up here in the graveyard.”

He was hired by the court in 1971 as a commissioner, who acts as a judge when all parties agree. Although he once insisted “there’s no future in retiring and rusting away in a rocking chair,” Gorenfeld did retire in 1997 to avoid a transfer from Torrance to Norwalk, an hour from his home. Then 82, he was having difficulty driving at night and was recovering from prostate cancer.

Although colleagues officially titled judge referred to Gorenfeld as “a judge’s judge” and “the finest legal mind in the building,” Gorenfeld never achieved his dream of actually becoming a judge.

Although commissioners share many of the same duties, they never reach the salary or prestige accorded people who are appointed judges by the governor or elected through a political campaign.

After a couple of decades hearing about 50 divorce matters a day, Gorenfeld offered a controversial proposal in 1989 to streamline the cases. He suggested all divorces be handled not in courtrooms but by court-appointed mediators who could divide assets and establish child support and custody, with advice from therapists, property appraisers and accountants. A courtroom at the time cost more than $3,000 a day and a mediator would cost less than $500.

Unable to get the plan adopted, Gorenfeld did not endear himself to divorce lawyers when he said they tend to “fan the adversarial flames” in divorce hearings.

Born in Leavenworth, Kan., to Russian-Jewish immigrant farmers, Gorenfeld moved to Los Angeles with his family at age 5. Like his father, he grew up supporting the Socialist Party and its perennial presidential candidate, Eugene V. Debs.

An avid student, Gorenfeld graduated from UCLA at age 20 and USC Law School three years later.

Gorenfeld turned down a job with the state Department of Finance to become more involved with civil rights, opening a law office to represent labor unions and take cases for the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

During the war, he worked with the Japanese-American Alliance to oppose the internment of Japanese American citizens, then served as a combat infantryman in the South Pacific.

Afterward, he worked for a time on an assembly line at the General Motors Corp. plant in South Gate, telling The Times: “I felt closer to those [auto workers] because they were the kind of guys I had gone to war with. . . . I didn’t feel comfortable with lawyers.”

In 1945, as a volunteer attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, he won a court order enabling a Nazi sympathizer to speak in a high school auditorium--then joined about 10,000 picketers protesting the controversial speech.

After the 1965 Watts riots, Gorenfeld coordinated a panel of about 40 volunteer attorneys to defend those arrested on charges such as arson, burglary and looting. About one-third of the 3,438 cases were dismissed or ended in acquittal.

Gorenfeld is survived by his wife, Katherine; a son, Will; a daughter, Judy Baerresen; two brothers, Harry and Ivan; and a sister, Ida Mae Machit.