Monday, April 18, 2011
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Judge Kauffman to Retire, Join Private Judging Firm
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Andrew Kauffman is retiring, the judge told the MetNews Friday.
Kauffman, whose last workday at the Torrance courthouse was Thursday, said he will be taking accrued vacation until his official May 15 retirement. He will then be joining Alternative Resolution Centers as a private judge, and said he expects to do a variety of civil work there.
The 61-year-old jurist, who has been a judicial officer for more than 25 years, said he “had something like [private judging] in mind” when he asked for a general civil assignment five years ago. A former prosecutor, he primarily heard criminal cases for his first 20 years on the bench.
A 1972 graduate of USC, he earned his law degree from UCLA three yers later. He was a deputy district attorney from 1975 until his appointment as a South Bay Municipal Court commissioner in 1985.
Then-Gov. George Deukmejian appointed Kauffman to the Los Angeles Municipal Court in 1989, and Deukmejian’s successor, Pete Wilson, appointed him to the Superior Court in 1995.
As a prosecutor, his assignments included Huntington Park, Long Beach, Torrance, and downtown Los Angeles. As a judge, he noted Friday, he spent a week or more in each of 22 different courtrooms in eight different courthouses.
“If I couldn’t make it as a lawyer,” he quipped, “I could make it as a taxi driver.”
There are currently four vacancies on the Superior Court. Judge Dennis Aichroth retired Feb. 17 and Judge Conrad Aragon Feb. 18; Judge Jerry E. Johnson March 3, and Judge Marlene Kristovich March 31.
Kauffman’s imminent retirement and the departure of Judge John Kronstadt once he receives his commission as a U.S. district judge would increase that total to six.
Copyright 2011, Metropolitan News Company