Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Page 3
Los Angeles Court Commissioner Named to San Bernardino Judgeship
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday named Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Stanford Reichert to the San Bernardino Superior Court.
Reichert, 52, has been a Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner for three years and currently sits at the West Covina courthouse.
He was named to the position of commissioner by the court’s judges after serving for a year as a State Bar Court judge. Among the cases which he heard in that capacity was that of Monica Malek-Yonan, an Orange County personal injury lawyer whose employees embezzled $1.7 million from her trust account.
Reichert, emphasizing the seriousness of misconduct involving loss of client’s funds, found that the attorney had inadequately supervised her employees and recommended that she be disbarred. The Review Department, however, concluded that because Malek-Yonan did not participate in the theft and promptly reported it to authorities when she discovered it, she was entitled to mitigation and that five years’ stayed suspension, with 18 months of actual suspension, was adequate punishment.
Prior to serving on the State Bar Court, Reichert served for nearly two years as judicial staff counsel in the San Bernardino Superior Court’s Rancho Cucamonga courthouse.
He has a total of 22 years of experience as a civil litigator, mediator and judicial officer. Reichert joined Hartman, Hosp, Richard & Schlegel as an associate in 1978, became a partner in the firm of Hartman, Morton & Schlegel in 1984 and began his own practice in 1988.
Reichert, who lives in LaVerne, near the San Bernardino-Los Angeles County line, is a graduate of the University of Utah and the Columbia University School of Law. He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Rufus Yent.
Reichert is the second Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner named to a judgeship in the past month. Sanjay T. Kumar was named a Los Angeles Superior Court judge by Schwarzenegger last month and was sworn in May 2.
Los Angeles Superior Court judges will elect successors to Reichert, Kumar, and Commissioner Guillermina Byrne, who is retiring June 6.
Copyright 2005, Metropolitan News Company