Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

 

Page 1

 

Obama Nominates Magistrate Olguin for District Judgeship

 

By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer

 

President Obama yesterday nominated U.S. Magistrate Judge Fernando M. Olguin to serve as judge of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, like Obama a Democrat, recommended Olguin and hailed his nomination in a statement.

“I was very pleased to recommend Magistrate Judge Fernando M. Olguin to the President for nomination to the District Court in Los Angeles,” the senator said. “Judge Olguin has built an impressive record of success in more than 10 years as a Magistrate Judge, including authoring hundreds of published opinions. He is a thoughtful and respected Magistrate Judge and he will be able to hit the ground running on the Federal District Court, which has the sixth-highest civil caseload in the Nation.”

Olguin has held his present position since 2001. Previously, he spent six years as a named partner in the firm of Traber, Voorhees & Olguin, where he primarily handled housing and employment matters.

From 1994 to 1995, he was the education program director at the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund.  He was a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice from 1991 to 1994.

He began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Carl A. Muecke of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. Olguin received his J.D. and M.A. in 1989 from UC Berkeley and his B.A. with honors in 1985 from Harvard University.

Last week’s confirmation of Judge Jacqueline Nguyen as a judge of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will create a third vacancy on the court.

 Obama on April 25 nominated Jesus G. Bernal, deputy federal public defender in charge of the Riverside office, to succeed Judge Stephen G. Larson, who resigned Nov. 2, 2009 to join the law firm of Girardi | Keese. He subsequently joined the firm of Arent Fox LLP.

Judge Valerie Baker Fairbank took senior status March 1.

The president yesterday also nominated Judge Frank Paul Geraci Jr. of Rochester, N.Y. to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.

Geraci has served as a Monroe County Court judge since 1999, primarily handling felony matters. From 1992 through 1998, he was a judge on the Rochester City Court, where he presided over various types of civil cases, misdemeanors, and pre-trial felony matters. 

He is a former partner in a Rochester law firm and was both a state and federal prosecutor. His undergraduate and law degrees are both from the University of Dayton.

 

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