Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Wednesday, April 6, 2005

 

Page 1

 

Ninth Circuit Names New Bankruptcy Judge for Central District

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

Costa Mesa attorney Theodor C. Albert has been named as a bankruptcy judge for the Central District of California by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a court official said yesterday.

Albert, 52, will serve a 14-year term in office, beginning June 1, 2005. He succeeds Judge Arthur Greenwald, who is stepping down from the Central District bankruptcy bench after 16 years of service.

Albert is an experienced attorney who has practiced bankruptcy law almost

exclusively for more than 22 years. In 1995, he co-founded and the Costa Mesa bankruptcy firm of Albert, Weiland & Golden, having previously spent 12 years with the Newport Beach office of Buchalter, Nemer, Fields & Younger.

Born in Fort Sill, Okla., Albert obtained his undergraduate degree in 1975 from Stanford University and graduated from UCLA School of Law in 1978. He has co-published bankruptcy articles and is active in a number of organizations involved with bankruptcy law.

He was a founding director of the Orange County Bankruptcy Forum and chaired the Commercial Law and Bankruptcy Section of the Orange County Bar Association in 1987. He is also on the panel of trained mediators for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California and is certified as a business bankruptcy specialist.

Albert was the 2000 recipient of the Orange County Bankruptcy Forum and Orange County Bar Association’s Peter M. Elliott Award as the practitioner who “best exemplifies the highest standards of ethics and scholarship.”

He previously served as master and former treasurer of the Peter Elliott Inn of Court and was a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome in 2003.

Judges of the Ninth Circuit have statutory responsibility for selecting and appointing the 68 bankruptcy judges in the nine states that comprise the circuit. The court uses a comprehensive merit selection process for the initial appointment and for the reappointments.

Bankruptcy judges serve a 14-year, renewable term, at a salary of $149,132, and handle all bankruptcy-related matters under the Bankruptcy Code.

 

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