Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Monday, March 7, 2016

 

Page 3

 

Judge O’Donnell to Retire From Superior Court Bench

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joanne B. O’Donnell said Friday she intends to retire.

O’Donnell, whose judicial career began when then-Gov. Pete Wilson appointed her to the Los Angeles Municipal Court in February 1996, said her last day on the bench will be Wednesday of next week. She will officially retire April 30.

She has sat for the last three years in the Writs and Receivers departments downtown, and handled a trial calendar before that. She told the MetNews Friday that she “very much liked” both assignments.

Her cases, she said, have “generally…been very interesting.”

She said she has no specific plans other than to travel and “kick up my heels for a while.” Although she has had the “best job in the world” for 20 years, she added, she is leaving because “I can” and there are “things I want to do besides working.”

One of those, she added, is to take a “long…road trip” including visits to a number of national parks.

O’Donnell is a graduate of UC Santa Barbara, with a master’s degree from UCLA. She graduated from Loyola Law School in 1983 and joined O’Melveny & Myers, where she was an associate before joining Loeb & Loeb in 1992.

She remained at Loeb until her appointment to the bench.

She is currently in her second term on the Supreme Court Committee on Judicial Ethics Opinions.

 

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