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Judge Thompson to Receive CWL’s Joan Dempsey Klein Award
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Sandra A. Thompson is this year’s recipient of the Joan Dempsey Klein Distinguished Jurist Award, California Women Lawyers said yesterday.
The award is given for “excellence as a jurist and for long-standing, vigorous service and inspiration to women lawyers in California,” the organization explained in a release. The honor is named for the presiding justice of Div. Three of this district’s Court of Appeal, who was CWL’s founding president.
Thompson was appointed to the South Bay Municipal Court in 1984 by then-Gov. George Deukmejian and was elevated to the Superior Court upon unification in 2000.
The 58-year-old Texas native is a graduate of USC and the University of Michigan Law School. Prior to her judicial appointment, she worked as an Inglewood deputy city attorney and a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney.
Thompson, who has devoted most of her judicial career to criminal law, chaired the Municipal Court Judges Association of Los Angeles County in the early 1990s. She has received many awards, including the Switzer Center’s Woman of the Year Award in 2003, the California Association of Black Lawyers Judge of the Year Award in 1999, and the Metropolitan YMCA’s Humanitarian Award in 1995.
She currently serves as president of the National Association of Women Judges. Klein was the organization’s founding president.
Klein is to present the award at CWL’s 17th Annual Southern California Judicial Reception May 20 at the offices of Bingham McCutchen in Los Angeles. CWL requests that those interested in attending call the group’s office at (916) 646-3114, e-mail info@cwl.org, or register on-line at www.cwl.org.
Copyright 2005, Metropolitan News Company