Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Monday, October 21, 2002

 

Page 3

 

Davis Appoints Attorneys With Diverse Careers to Southern California Courts

 

By ALLISON LOMAS, Staf Writer

 

Gov. Gray Davis has appointed three new judges to the Superior Courts in Orange and San Diego Counties, including a former deputy district attorney, a former deputy public defender, and a partner at Morrison & Foerster, the governor’s office announced on Friday.

DeAnn M. Salcido, 37, was appointed to the San Diego Superior Court after spending five years as a prosecutor for Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles and eight years in private practice.

Salcido, now living in El Cajon, prosecuted criminal cases as a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles from 1989 to 1992. After spending several years handling civil litigation matters with two San Diego firms, she returned to the public sector when she joined the San Diego district attorney’s office at the end of 2000.

Salcido, who will be filling the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Victor E. Ramirez, was admitted to the bar in 1989 after receiving her law degree from UCLA, where she was the student body president.

Since graduating from UCLA, Salcido has continued to be active in professional and community organizations, including the Hispanic National Bar Association and the Mexican American Business & Professional Association.

She also served as president of the Lawyers Club of San Diego from 2000 to 2001 and is currently a member of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association’s board of directors.

In 1999, the Board of Supervisors in San Diego appointed Salcido to the County Commission on the Status of Women.

Salcido received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, San Diego. This year, the UCSD Alumni Association recognized Salcido’s community involvement by giving her the Distinguished Service Award.

Gov. Davis also announced the appointment of Franz E. Miller and Josephine Staton Tucker to the Orange County Superior Court on Friday.

Miller, a certified specialist in criminal law admitted to the bar in 1974, will be filling a vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Richard L. Weatherspoon.

In addition to teaching classes at several law schools, Miller, 53, has served as a senior staff attorney at the Court of Appeal in Orange County for the last 13 years. Prior to joining the court in 1989, Miller handled both civil and criminal matters as a sole practitioner in Santa Ana and served as a deputy public defender in Orange County from 1976 to 1983.

Being a judge is not new to Miller, who has sat on the bench as a judge pro tempore for the municipal and superior courts since 1987. He has presided over small claims and traffic matters, settlement conferences and law and motion proceedings.

Miller, like Salcido, received his law degree from UCLA and is involved in the community. He served as the President of the Orange County Bar Association in 1997 and currently serves as Secretary of the Orange County Bar Association Charitable Fund.

Tucker, a lawyer who specializes in employment law, said she was “pleased more than surprised” by her appointment to the Orange Superior Court. She applied for the judgeship in March of this year, she said.

Tucker, who will be filling the vacancy created by the elevation of Judge Richard D. Fybel to the Court of Appeal, said she was “pleased” with the “tremendous opportunity to benefit the public.”

She had “hoped for this for a long time,” she said, adding that judges significantly impact the community even if the average person does not realize it.

 Tucker, 41, is a partner in the Irvine office of Morrison & Foerster and the co-chair of the firm’s 50-lawyer Employment Law Department. She became a partner in the beginning of 1995.

Before being admitted to the bar in California in 1988, Tucker, a native of Missouri, clerked for Eighth Circuit Judge John Gibson from 1986 to 1987. The hours she has spent in the court room as a litigator have prepared her more than her time as clerk, the Harvard Law School graduate said.

In 2001, she received the Employment Law Trial Lawyer of the Year Award from the Orange County Trial Lawyers Association.

She is also the chief editor and co-author of the California employers’ Guide to Employee Handbooks and Personnel Policy Manuals, the author of other articles on employment law and an editorial consultant for the California Employment Law Reporter.

The newly appointed judges will receive salaries of $139,476 each.

 

Copyright 2002, Metropolitan News Company