Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Page 1
Bush Nominates Former Judge Schiavelli to U.S. District Court for Central District
By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer
Former Los Angeles Superior Court Judge George P. Schiavelli was nominated by President Bush yesterday to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Schiavelli, who was recommended by the bipartisan committee that reviews potential district judges throughout the state just two months after applying, would succeed Judge Lourdes Baird. Baird is taking senior status in May.
“I’m very excited and very gratified,” Schiavelli, 55, told the MetNews. “I look forward to working with the Senate throughout the confirmation process.”
Following standard White House advice to judicial nominees, he declined to comment further.
Schiavelli served on the Superior Court from 1994—when he was appointed by then-Gov. Pete Wilson—until July 2000, when he joined the firm of Crosby Heafey Roach & May.
Headed Appellate Divison
When he left the court, he was in his second year as presiding judge of the Appellate Division, to which he was assigned in 1997 by Chief Justice Ronald M. George. He said at the time that he was sad to leave the bench, but was compelled to do so because of an illness in the family.
Schiavelli was born in Florida but his family moved to the Los Angeles area when he was about five years old. He attended Grant High School in the San Fernando Valley, earned his undergraduate degree at Stanford University and received his law degree in 1974 from UCLA.
He played football at Stanford, where he was a teammate of Heisman Trophy winner Jim Plunkett, graduating in 1970. In law school, he gave up a seat on the law review to participate in the moot court honors program.
Appellate Practice
Much of his legal career has been devoted to appellate work. After a stint at O’Melveny & Myers, he became a partner at Ervin, Cohen & Jessup and later at Horvitz & Levy, where he was working at the time Wilson tapped him for the bench.
He is a past president of the Italian American Lawyers Association and served from 1980 to 1982 on the Board of Governors of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers.
The president made three other judicial nominations yesterday.
Department of Health and Human Services Department official Claude A. Allen, whose nomination to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals drew fire from Democrats and was returned when Congress adjourned before Christmas, was re-nominated.
Paul S. Diamond of Pennsylvania was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of that state and Robert Bryan Harwell was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.
Copyright 2004, Metropolitan News Company