Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Thursday, December 24, 2009

 

Page 3

 

Governor Reappoints Attorney Ronnie Caplane to WCAB

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has reappointed Oakland attorney Ronnie G. Caplane to the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board.

Schwarzenegger on Tuesday reappointed the former newspaper columnist and U.S. Department of Justice trial attorney as a commissioner on the board, a position she has held since 2003.

The nomination is subject to confirmation by the Senate.

Caplane, 61, was admitted to the State Bar in 1975 after graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and UC Hastings College of Law.

She was an associate attorney for Lewis, Rouda and Lewis from 1976 to 1978 and then a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Division from 1979 to 1982. Caplane was also a partner with Bruyneel and Caplane from 1983 to 1985, and a freelance writer and columnist for East Bay area publications the Piedmonter and the Montclarion from 1992 to 2006.

Caplane is a widowed mother of two adult sons, and her columns sometimes dealt with the aftermath of her husband’s January 2003 death in a helicopter accident.

In 2006, she made an unsuccessful run for a seat in the California Assembly, coming in third with 12.5 percent of the vote in a five-way Democratic primary won by current Assembly Member Sandré Swanson.

Caplane went to inactive status with the State Bar in 1995 after she became a writer and columnist, but returned to active status in 2003.

The Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, a seven-member, judicial body appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate, exercises all judicial powers vested in it by the Labor Code. Its major functions include review of petitions for reconsideration of decisions by workers’ compensation administrative law judges of the Division of Workers’ Compensation and regulation of the adjudication process by adopting rules of practice and procedure.

Compensation for the position is $128,109.

In other news, Schwarzenegger on Tuesday appointed Brent Jamison, 35, as assistant secretary for planning and policy for the State and Consumer Services Agency.

Jamison—who is not a member of the State Bar, but graduated from McGeorge School of Law in 2000 after obtaining a degree in political science from Santa Clara University—has been the assistant deputy director for the Department of Consumer Affairs’ Office of Policy and Legislative Review since earlier this year.

A Republican, he served as a law clerk for the environmental enforcement section at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2001 to 2002, and the following year clerked for Sacramento attorney Dan Brace.

In 2004, Jamison became a senior legislative analyst with the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, and two years later he became deputy director of legislation.

The position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $90,480.

 

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