Friday, November 28, 2008
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Governor Appoints Judge Andrew Guilford to Access to Justice Commission
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday announced the appointment of U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Guilford of the Central District of California to the State Bar Commission on Access to Justice.
The 24-member commission, which works closely with the Judicial Council of California, seeks to explore ways to improve access to civil justice for Californians living on low and moderate incomes.
A former State Bar president, Guilford, 57, was appointed to the bench by Pres. George W. Bush in 2006 after spending over 30 years in private practice with Sheppard, Mullin, Richter, & Hampton.
Former Bar President
In addition to previously serving as president of the Orange County Bar Association, he has served as a lawyer representative to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference; an arbitrator and judge pro tem in the Orange Superior Court; a member of the Judicial Council task force on self-represented litigants and the state Supreme Court’s task force on multi-jurisdictional practice; a founding officer of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers of Orange County; and president of the Public Law Center, Orange County’s pro bono, public interest law firm.
A Republican from Trabuco Canyon, Guilford attended both college and law school at UCLA, and served as an extern to former Presiding Justice Lester W. Roth of this district’s Court of Appeal before being admitted to the State Bar in 1975.
He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers Association and serves on the board of directors for the Federal Bar Association. He also previously received the Bernard E. Witkin Amicus Curiae Award from the state Judicial Council for his contributions to the state courts, and has been honored by the Orange County Bar Association with its lifetime achievement award, and by the Anti-Defamation League with its Jurisprudence Award.
The position does not require Senate confirmation and there is no salary.
Other Appointments
The governor also appointed Los Angeles attorney Stuart Leviton, and San Diego attorneys Dave Carothers and Patricia Perez to the Fair Employment and Housing Commission, subject to Senate confirmation.
The commission promotes and enforces the civil rights of the people of California to be free from unlawful discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations, and to be free from hate violence and threats of violence, pursuant to the Fair Employment and Housing Act.
Leviton, 42, has been a shareholder in the Leviton Law Group since 2004 and has served as a partner at Reed & Davidson since 2006.
Local Attorney
A West Hollywood Democrat, and a former risk management analyst at Tillinghast, he attended college at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Texas at Austin School of Law before his admission to the State Bar in 1993.
Leviton joined Latham & Watkins as an associate that year; Folger, Levin & Kahn in 1997; Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in 1998; and then Levinson, Arshonsky & Kurtz in 1999, where he served until 2004.
He is a member of the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and vice president of the West Hollywood Community Housing Cooperation Board of Directors.
Carothers, 51, has served as a managing partner at Carlton, DiSante & Freudenberger since 2000.
A Carlsbad Republican, he is a U.S. Navy veteran and attended college at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and law school at USC School of Law.
He was admitted to the State Bar in 1986, and served as a partner at McInnis, Fitzgerald, Rees, Sharkey & McIntyre until 1997, when he joined Chapin, Shea & Carter.
San Diego County Resident
Perez, 41, has been president and chief executive officer of Puente Consulting since 2001, and served for a year before that as in-house employment counsel and human resources manager at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Washington, D.C.
A San Diego County resident who is registered “decline to state,” she was admitted to the State Bar in 1992 after attending both college and law school at UCLA.
Perez joined Balestreri, Pendleton & Potocki in 1993, followed by Barnhorst, Schreiner & Goonan in 1996. She formerly served as a consultant to the National Center for State Courts in Virginia, and is a member and vice chair of the executive committee of the California Bar Association’s Labor & Employment Law Section.
She is also a member of the American Bar Association, Society for Human Resource Management, San Diego County Bar Association, San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association, National Association of Women Business Owners and the University of California, Los Angeles Alumni Association.
Compensation for all three positions on the commission is $100 per diem.
Copyright 2008, Metropolitan News Company