Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

 

Page 3

 

Governor Names Manatt Phelps Partner to UC Board of Regents

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed Manatt, Phelps & Phillips partner George D. Kieffer to the University of California Board of Regents.

The governor on Monday also appointed San Luis Obispo attorney Timothy W. O’Hara to the Board of Parole Hearings.

Both appointments require Senate confirmation.

Kieffer, 61, is based in Manatt Phelps’ Los Angeles office, where he serves as chair of the firm’s Government and Regulatory Policy Division, overseeing major business litigation, business transactions and land use matters.

He is also a member of the firm’s Executive Committee and the Board of Directors of ManattJones Global Strategies LLC, an international consulting firm and wholly-owned affiliate of Manatt Phelps. 

Admitted to the State Bar in 1973, Kieffer joined the firm as an associate that year after obtaining his law degree from UCLA. He attended college at UC Santa Barbara, where he later served as alumni association president, alumni regent and chair of the university’s foundation.

Kieffer is a Democrat, and has also served as president of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges and a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission to Review the Master Plan for Higher Education.

Under the California Constitution, the Board of Regents has “full powers of organization and governance” over the UC-system. The governor serves as its president, and appoints 18 members for 12-year terms. Appointees do not draw a salary.

O’Hara, 43, has served as the associate chief deputy commissioner for the Board of Parole Hearings since 2008, and served as a deputy commissioner during the preceding six years.

A Republican, he was admitted to the State Bar in 1993 after graduating from California State University, Fresno and the University of San Diego School of Law, and he owned and operated the Law Office of Timothy O’Hara—where he specialized in criminal and real estate law—until 2002.

The Board of Parole Hearings is comprised of 17 members appointed by the governor. It considers parole release and establishes the terms and conditions of parole for all persons sentenced under the Indeterminate Sentencing Law, persons sentenced to a term of less than life under Penal Code Sec. 1168(b), and persons serving a sentence of life with possibility of parole.

Annual compensation for the position is $111,845.

 

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