Wednesday, April 24, 2019

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Commissioner Matthew St. George Jr., 70, Former Bar Leader, Dies

By a MetNews Staff Writer

MATTHEW ST. GEORGE

1948-2019

Services are pending for Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Matthew St. George Jr., who died Friday of cancer at age 70.

St. George was hired by a vote of the judges of the court in 2009. He was previously a deputy Los Angeles city attorney for 24 years—serving as first vice president of the Los Angeles City Attorneys Association in 2008—and was in private practice for four years before becoming a public lawyer.

In 1999, St. George chaired the State Bar Conference of Delegates (now, the California Conference of Bar Associations). Over a period of several years, he was a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s delegation to the conference.

He was the primary proponent in 2006 of a resolution urging adoption of a measure, as the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution, reading: “All persons shall have an inalienable right to privacy in their person and their property and shall not be deprived of this right without due process of law.” St. George in 2004 championed a resolution in favor of California recognizing same-sex marriages.

It was widely anticipated in 2002 that St. George—who was the establishment-backed candidate, and then a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association Board of Trustees—would be elected to the State Bar Board of Governors (now called the Board of Trustees). He was defeated by an outsider, then-Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Steven J. Ipsen, by the slim margin of 3,082 to 3,055.

St. George was president of the California Court Commissioners Association in 2013 and was secretary/treasurer of the California Judges Association in 2017-18.

While at Loyola, from which he received his law degree in 1979, St. George founded the Gay and Lesbian student group; was a president of Los Angeles Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), now the Los Angeles LGBT Bar Association; and was active in the International Association of LGBTQ+ Judges.

He is survived by his husband, Roy Williams, and family members.