Thursday, May 26, 2011
Page 4
Attorney and Judicial Appointments Advisor John Davies Dies at 76
By a MetNews Staff Writer
John Davies, a San Diego attorney and businessman who helped pick hundreds of state and federal judges, has died.
Davies died Friday after battling pancreatic cancer, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported yesterday. He was 76.
Davies also spent a dozen years as a University of California regent, including two years as the board chair.
“He was extremely bright,” former Gov. Pete Wilson, a close friend who relied on Davies as an adviser when Wilson was mayor of San Diego, U.S. senator and governor, told the newspaper.
“Things, I think, came easily to him in terms of his intellect and he demonstrated leadership repeatedly and in a variety of different roles. He was very good at getting people to consensus.”
In addition to his civic work, which included a number of local posts in San Diego, Davies practiced real estate and probate law and partnered with several clients on investments.
He had been of counsel to Allen, Matkins, Leck, Gamble, Mallory and Natsis since 1993. He served as judicial appointments secretary for Wilson from 1995 to 1999 and then as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s part-time judicial appointments advisor from 2004 to 2007.
Schwarzenegger named him to the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority Governing Board last year.
He chaired then-U.S. Sen. John Seymour’s California Judicial Qualification Committee from 1991 to 1992 after leading a similar committee for Wilson when he was a senator from 1983 to 1990.
Davies was admitted to the State Bar in 1963 after attending USC and UC Berkeley School of Law and serving three years in the Navy. He was a research attorney for California Supreme Court Justice Roger J. Traynor from 1962 to 1963, and then served as a partner in the law firm of Davies and Burch until 1976.
The Union-Tribune said a celebration of his life will be held at 4 p.m. June 3 at the Town and Country Resort Hotel in his hometown, and that his family suggested donations to the John Davies Memorial Fund at UCSD or Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego.
He is survived by his wife, Ann Davies, and four children, Christopher Davies, Thompson Davies, Michael Davies and Suzanne Davies Farr.
Copyright 2011, Metropolitan News Company