Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Friday, December 5, 2008

 

Page 1

 

Pearce, Loomis Elected Superior Court Commissioners

 

By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer

 

Attorneys Michael Pearce and Lloyd Loomis have been elected Los Angeles Superior Court  commissioners by the court’s judges, officials said yesterday.

Pearce, 56, is a partner in the Long Beach firm of Wise Pearce Yocis and Smith, where he primarily does business litigation. He told the MetNews that he expects to wind down his practice in time to be sworn in Jan. 5, and does not yet know where he will be assigned.

Pearce said he sought the commissioner’s position because he wanted to “give back to the community” and because “after 30 years of litigation I figured I’d done my bit.”

A native of England, Pearce has degrees from both Oxford and Cambridge. He co-founded the Oxford & Cambridge Club of Los Angeles and describes himself as a passionate fan of Newcastle United, one of his native country’s top soccer clubs.

“I’ve seen every game this season” via satellite television, he explained.

He came to the United States in 1975, graduated from Duke Law School in 1979, and joined his present firm—known in prior incarnations as Wise Wiezorek Timmons & Wise and as Wise & Nelson—that same year.

He has been a partner in the firm since 1984, and has been a U.S. citizen since 1983.

He is a former president of the Long Beach Bar Association, a former director of the Long Beach Bar Foundation, a former chair of the State Bar Standing Committee on Fee Arbitration, and a former Los Angeles County Bar Association trustee.

He served on the Long Beach Citizen Police Complaint Commission from 1991 to 1997, and chaired the commission in 1993 and 1994. Pearce has also been a judge pro tem, settlement officer, special master and arbitrator for the Los Angeles Superior Court.

He also serves as an administrative hearing officer for the City of Long Beach and hears student discipline cases for California State University-Long Beach.

Loomis, 62, is a partner at Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith LLP and a private arbitrator and mediator, primarily concentrating on labor and employment law.

He worked in labor relations for General Motors in Kansas City, Kansas while attending law school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He began his legal career in Kansas City, Mo. before joining Caterpillar Tractor Company in Illinois.

He came to Los Angeles to practice with Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz,  then worked as senior counsel at Atlantic Richfield Company from 1980 to 1999. He later worked at Steptoe & Johnson and at Sonneschein, Nath & Rosenthal before joining Lewis D’Amato.

He has an undergraduate degree from Columbia University and has taught employment law and alternative dispute resolution at the Claremont Graduate School. He has written and spoken extensively on employment law issues.

He is a past president of the California Employment Law Council, a past chair of the Los Angeles Bar Association Labor Law Section, and a member of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, to which he was elected in 1997. He has been a member of advisory panels to the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. 

The new commissioners succeed Amy Pellman and B. Scott Silverman, who were appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as judges last month. They were the highest ranked candidates on the list of nominees.

Under local rules, vacant superior court commissioner positions are filled by a vote of the judges from a list of candidates nominated by a court panel. Although the ranking order is not binding on the judges, all commissioners chosen in recent years were selected in ranked order.

Following the election of Pearce and Lloomis, 19 candidates remain on that list in the following ranked order:

Los Angeles Deputy City Attorney Matthew C. St. George; Deputy Public Defender Kenneth H. Taylor; William V. McTaggart Jr., a professional mediator and former partner at Parker, Milliken, Clark, O’Hara & Samuelian; Stephen M. Lowry of the downtown Los Angeles firm of Russo & Lowry; Los Angeles attorney Michael Shultz; Deputy Public Defender Nancy Pogue; Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Inspector General Nicole Bershon; Children’s Law Center attorney Emma Castro; Deputy District Attorney Eloise Phillips; Michael R. Diliberto, president of Advantage Arbitration and Mediation Services, LLC; Deputy District Attorney Arunas A. Sodonis; Los Angeles attorney Faith Mitchell; Referee Shep Zebberman; Lancaster attorney William A. Clark; Richard L. Bissetti, an associate at Century City’s Magana, Cathcart & McCarthy; Downey criminal defense lawyer Michael LaPan; Hawthorne Deputy City Attorney Robert Kim; Deputy Public Defender Lisa Brackelmanns; and Deputy District Attorney Renee Korn.

 

Copyright 2008, Metropolitan News Company