Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Friday, July 11, 2008

 

Page 3

 

James Aguirre Elected to Seat on State Bar Board of Governors

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

Los Angeles attorney James Aguirre has been elected to the State Bar Board of Governors, he told the MetNews last night.

Aguirre said he had been notified earlier in the day that a canvass of ballots cast by lawyers throughout the county had resulted in his election. He declined to reveal vote totals, saying he considered them irrelevant.

“It doesn’t really matter,” Aguirre said. “I’m proud to represent the district and all the lawyers in...Los Angeles County.”

Los Angeles County is State Bar District Seven, and has five representatives on the board. Two of those seats were up for election this year, but while Aguirre had to defeat two opponents—Century City sole practitioner Marty O’Toole and Diamond Bar sole practitioner James Li—to win Seat 1, Assistant U.S. Attorney Angela Davis was unopposed for Seat 2 and was “deemed elected” without her name appearing on the ballot.

Aguirre is with the law firm of Richardson and Fair, and is also house counsel to the Automobile Club of Southern California.

Aguirre is a UCLA School of Law graduate and 30-year practitioner. He began his career as a poverty attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Pasadena, where he set up one of the first domestic violence clinics in California.

He later became first managing attorney of the United Auto Workers Legal Services Plan in 1983, and then assistant general counsel to the Los Angeles Community College District in 1988 before joining Richardson and Fair in 1990.

He is a longtime participant in the Conference of Delegates of California Bar Associations and its predecessor, the State Bar Conference of Delegates, having served as chief executive officer and chair of the group in 2005.

Aguirre said he did not yet have an agenda for his term, which begins at the State Bar annual meeting in September.

“I haven’t had time yet to really digest it,” he explained. “But I have a good working relationship with the current members [from the district] and with Angela Davis, and I expect to collaborate with them on issues that affect lawyers in the state and in the county.”

 

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