Monday, August 30, 2004
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U.S. District Judges Tevrizian, Taylor to Take Senior Status
By a MetNews Staff Writer
U.S. District Judges Dickran M. Tevrizian Jr. and Gary L. Taylor will take senior status within the next year, the MetNews has learned.
Taylor will take the semi-retired status on Dec. 8, his 66th birthday. Tevrizian will do so on Aug. 5 of next year, the day after he turns 65.
Sixty-five is the minimum age for senior status, which allows a judge to draw full salary for carrying as little as a 25 percent caseload, if the judge has at least 15 years of service. Judges who are older than 65 and have at least 10 years of service may take senior status if their ages and years of service total at least 80.
Traditionally, most judges have waited until shortly before the effective date to give notice of their intent to leave active status. The early announcements by Tevrizian and Taylor are in keeping with President Bush’s call for judges to give notice up to a year in advance, so as to minimize the length of time a seat remains vacant.
Los Angeles Native
Tevrizian, a Los Angeles native, has been a judge for most of the past three decades. He was appointed to the federal bench in 1985 and previously served more than 10 years as a trial judge in Los Angeles County.
The jurist majored in finance and accounting at USC, graduating in 1962, then earned a law degree there in 1965. He worked for a national accounting firm before joining the law firm of Kirtland & Packard where he worked from 1966 to 1972.
Tevrizian was 31 when he was appointed to the old Los Angeles Municipal Court by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1972, making him the youngest of Reagan’s judicial appointees. Reagan’s successor, Jerry Brown, elevated him to the Superior Court in 1978, but in 1982 he retired to return to law practice as a partner in the law firm of Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg & Tunney.
Reagan, as president, appointed Tevrizian to the federal bench in 1985.
Tevrizian, who in 1987 was named Trial Judge of the Year by the California Trial Lawyers Association, is one of the few federal judges to have won the County Bar’s Outstanding Trial Jurist Award. Bar officials gave him that honor in 1995, citing his demeanor and skillful handling of complex cases.
The Malibu Bar Association honored him as Federal Court Trial Judge of the Year in 1998.
Gold Medal
The judge is an active member of the local Armenian American community. He received the Peter the Great Gold Medal of Honor from the U.S. section of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, recognizing his accomplishments in the legal field.
In 1999, the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations, Inc. awarded him the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, given “to Americans of diverse origins for their outstanding contributions to their own ethnic groups and to American society.”
He has served on the boards of Southwestern School of Law and the Glendale Memorial Health Foundation.
Taylor was an Orange Superior Court judge when then-President George Bush appointed him to the federal bench in 1990. A 1963 graduate of UCLA School of Law, he served in the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps from 1964 to 1966, then practiced in Newport Beach for 20 years before then-Gov. George Deukmejian named him to the Superior Court in 1986.
He was an active member of the Orange County Bar Association before becoming a judge, chairing its delegation to the State Bar Conference of Delegates twice and its Business Litigation Section three times.
Copyright 2004, Metropolitan News Company