Tuesday, April 15, 2014
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Segal, Lavin Under Consideration for Court of Appeal
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Los Angeles Superior Court Judges John L. Segal and Luis A. Lavin are under consideration by Gov. Jerry Brown for appointment to this district’s Court of Appeal, the MetNews has learned.
Segal was appointed to the court by then-Gov. Gray Davis in December 2000, and also an adjunct professor at USC School of Law, from which he graduated in 1987. He received his undergraduate degree in 1982.
After completing law school, he worked as a law clerk for Judge Robert S. Vance Sr. of the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1988, he joined the law firm of Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp in Los Angeles and became a litigation partner in 1995, remaining at the firm until his appointment to the bench.
He has recently sat as a Court of Appeal justice by assignment.
Lavin was appointed to the court by Davis in 2001. He is a member of the faculties at Whittier and Southwestern law schools.
A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Law School, he handled civil litigation and transactional matters from 1985 to 1990, at the San Francisco firm then known as McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen. He also did pro bono work, spending a month in Puerto Rico studying access to its health care system by HIV positive people, and co-authoring a chapter in the 1992 book AIDS Agenda: Emerging Issues in Civil Rights.
Prior to Lavin’s appointment to the bench, he served as general counsel and director of enforcement for the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission from 1999 to 2001, and as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division from 1995 to 1999.
He received a special commendation award for outstanding service to the Civil Rights Division from then-Attorney General Janet Reno.
His assignments on the court have included writs and receivers, civil fast track, felony trials, and family law. He is also a trustee of the Los Angeles Law Library.
Lavin would be the first openly gay justice in the Second District. Brown appointed the first openly gay appellate justice in the state, James Humes of the First District, in 2012.
The MetNews previously reported that Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Helen Bendix, Brian Hoffstadt, Lee Edmon, and Sanjay Kumar; U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins; and Southwestern Law School professor Christopher Cameron were under consideration for the court. There is a presiding justice vacancy in the district’s Div. One and there are associate justice slots open in Divs. Two, Four, Five, Six, and Seven.
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