Monday, July 25, 2011
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Jon Streeter Elected 87th President of State Bar
By a MetNews Staff Writer
San Francisco attorney Jon Streeter on Friday was elected the 87th president of the State Bar in an internal election by the Board of Governors.
Four third-year board members had declared their candidacy to succeed San Francisco attorney William N. Hebert as head of the 232,000-member organization, but Los Angeles representative James Aguirre withdrew without explanation before voting began, a State Bar spokesperson said.
Aguirre, the lead attorney for the law firm of Richardson & Fair and house counsel for the Automobile Club of Southern California, reserved comment when reached while traveling after the meeting.
Angela Davis
Los Angeles representative Angela Davis, an assistant U.S. attorney, was eliminated in the first round of balloting, the spokesperson said, and Streeter received a majority of votes in a second round, besting Michael Tenenbaum of Thousand Oaks.
Streeter, 54, ran on a platform focused on improving attorney discipline, governance and communications.
“I will work hard to reestablish a sense of unity and restore the effectiveness and integrity of the discipline system,” Streeter said after the vote was announced. He indicated that rebuilding the Office of Chief Trial Counsel, which lost its top prosecutor and four members of its executive staff earlier this month, is among his top priorities.
The newly-elected president also acknowledged questions of governance had recently divided the board, and insisted that his tenure has “got to be a year of reconciliation” for the organization.
“To be effective, we must work together,” Streeter said, and vowed to be a leader who would “try to find consensus but only after giving everyone in the room a fair hearing.”
Streeter is a partner at Keker & Van Nest and represented Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties on the board. He served as chair of the board’s Stakeholders Committee and leader of a project to secure legal help for veterans.
The attorney was also vice-chairman of the California State Senate Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice from 2005 to 2008, president of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers of Northern California from 2006 to 2007, and president of the Bar Association of San Francisco in 2004.
Other Activities
He headed the American Inns of Court, Edward McFetridge Chapter, in 2007, and chaired of the Lawyer Delegation for the Northern District of California to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1999 as well.
Streeter clerked for U.S. Circuit Judge Harry T. Edwards of the District of Columbia after graduating from Stanford University and completing law school at UC Berkeley. He spent 14 years with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP before moving to Keker & Van Nest.
He is slated to be sworn in during the State Bar Annual Meeting in September in Long Beach, along with Los Angeles attorney Craig E. Holden, a partner with Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard & Smith LLP who was elected to the board earlier this month.
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