Thursday, August 10, 2006
Page 3
Justice Laurie D. Zelon Joins ABA Board of Governors
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Court of Appeal Justice Laurie D. Zelon of this district’s Div. Seven took office yesterday as a member of the American Bar Association’s Board of Governors at the conclusion of the association’s annual meeting in Hawaii.
Zelon has been a member of the ABA since 1978 and has served as the chair of the Standing Committee on Lawyers’ Public Service Responsibility, the Law Firm Pro Bono Project and the Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants. She also has served on several ABA entities, including the Consortium on Law and the Public, the Task Force on Domestic Violence and the Ethics 2000 Commission.
She has been president of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, a member of its board of trustees, and chair of its Federal Courts Committee, its Judiciary Committee, its Access to Justice Committee, and its subsection on Real Estate Litigation.
In 2000 the California State Bar chose Zelon to receive the Loren Miller Legal Services Award, given each year to an attorney who demonstrated a long-term commitment to legal services for the indigent. She received the award “for dedicating countless hours of bar service at the local, state, and national level to develop and improve the delivery of legal services to the poor and to increase effective pro bono legal services,” the bar said at the time.
That same year the Pro Bono Institute in Washington, D.C. named the Laurie D. Zelon Pro Bono Award in her honor and made her its first recipient.
Zelon has been a long-time member and served as Chair of the California Commission on Access to Justice, is an active member of several statewide judicial committees addressing administration of justice issues, and has written articles and spoken at educational programs for judges and lawyers concerning pro bono, public service, legal ethics and legal education.
Born in Durham, N.C., she graduated from Cornell University in 1974 and Harvard Law School in 1977. She was a partner in the Los Angeles firm Hufstedler, Kaus & Ettinger, and in Morrison & Foerster, before being appointed to the Los Angeles Superior Court by then-Gov. Gray Davis in 2000. In 2003 Davis appointed her to the Court of Appeal.
Zelon will represent California for a three-year term on the board, which meets at least four times a year to oversee management of the ABA.
She is married and has two sons.
Copyright 2006, Metropolitan News Company