Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Thursday, April 3, 2003

 

Page 3

 

Davis Names Ex-Presidents of San Diego County Bar as Superior Court Judges

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

Two former presidents of the San Diego County Bar Association were named to the San Diego Superior Court yesterday by Gov. Gray Davis.

Aaron H. Katz, 41, will succeed Bonnie Dumanis, who was elected San Diego district attorney last November. Stephanie Sontag, 54, fills a seat left vacant when Carol Lam resigned to become U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California.

Katz is a member of the law firm of Chapin, Shea, McNitt & Carter, which he joined in 1990. His practice is primarily devoted to the defense of medical malpractice and products liability cases, usually on behalf of doctors, hospitals and businesses. He previously worked as a deputy district attorney in San Diego from 1986 to 1990.

Katz served as president of the San Diego County Bar Association in 2001. He has also served on the boards of the San Diego County Bar Foundation and San Diego Mediation Center.

Katz is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates. He graduated from UCLA and Southwestern Law School.

Sontag is a partner in the law firm of Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch, where she handles complex business litigation and the defense of labor and employment law cases. She practiced with two other firms for 14 years before joining Procopio Cory in 1997.

Sontag served as president of the San Diego County Bar Association in 2000 and as president of the Lawyers Club of San Diego in 1995-96. She currently chair of the San Diego Bar Association’s Arbitration Committee and a member of the boards of the San Diego Bar Foundation and California Rural Legal Assistance.

Sontag graduated from the University of Arizona and the University of San Diego Law School, and is married to Superior Court Judge David Oberholtzer.

 

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