Monday, January 31, 2011
Page 3
Superior Court Judges Aichroth, Aragon Set February Retirement Dates
By a MetNews Staff Writer
A pair of Los Angeles Superior Court judges have left the bench and will officially retire next month, officials said Friday.
Judge Dennis A. Aichroth is set to retire Feb. 17 and Judge Conrad R. Aragon the next day. Staff in both of their courtrooms reported that the judges will use accrued vacation time before those dates.
Aichroth began his judicial career on the Citrus Municipal Court in 1995, presiding over the same courtroom he had served as a bailiff while working his way through law school 22 years earlier. He served as assistant presiding judge of the municipal court in 1997 and presiding judge in 1998, and became a Superior Court judge through unification in 2000.
He later sat in South Gate, and more recently in East Los Angeles.
Aichroth graduated from the University of La Verne Law School in 1973, and upon gaining admission to the bar, set up a solo practice in West Covina, which he maintained until he was tapped for the bench by then-Gov. Pete Wilson.
The jurist spent a year working as a corrections officer for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department before becoming a deputy marshal in 1967.
Aragon was appointed to the East Los Angeles Municipal Court in 1990 by then-Gov. George Deukmejian, 10 months after he joined Matthias & Berg as an associate. He became a Superior Court judge through unification in 2000, and has sat in Pomona and downtown Los Angeles.
He earned his undergraduate degree from UCLA in 1973, a master’s degree from Yale University in 1975 and his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1978.
Once admitted to practice, Aragon went to work for Byrd, Sturdevant, Nassif & Pinney in El Centro for a year before coming to Los Angeles and becoming an associate with Lewis, D’Amato, Brisbois & Bisgaard. He moved to Zobrist & McCullough in 1987, and then to Lawler Felix & Hall in 1988.
He was one of about two dozen local judges who donated $500—the maximum that a judge is permitted to donate under the ethics rules—to Steve Cooley’s unsuccessful campaign for state attorney general.
Judge Jerry Johnson, who left the bench in November, will retire in March, bringing to three the number of vacancies that new Gov. Jerry Brown will have to fill.
Copyright 2011, Metropolitan News Company