Thursday, June 6, 2002
Page 1
Davis Names Public Sector Lawyers to Superior Court
By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer/Appellate Courts
Gov. Gray Davis yesterday named Deputy Attorney General Zaven V. Sinanian and South Coast Air Quality Management District Senior Deputy Counsel Gloria L. White-Brown to the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Sinanian, 42, has been a deputy attorney general since 1989. He began his career defending inmate’s rights suits, then switched to criminal appeals before taking up his current assignment in the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice section in 1996.
“I’m honored and humbled to have been selected by the governor,” he told the MetNews. He said he will “miss the friendships and the camaraderie of the {Attorney General’s] office,” but that having spent his entire career in public service, moving to the judicial branch was a “natural next step” and something senior lawyers in the office encouraged him to do.
Sinanian also serves as president of Armenian Bar Association, of which he was a founding member, and has been Attorney General Bill Lockyer’s liaison to the Armenian American community of California since 1999. He was one of the authors of the attorney general’s amicus brief defending the constitutionality of the Armenian Genocide Victims Act of 2000.
The law permits the heirs of Armenians who were killed by the Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923, or who escaped to avoid persecution, and who have unpaid insurance claims to sue under an extended statute of limitations and prohibits the dismissal of such suits on inconvenient forum grounds.
Sinanian traveled to Armenia when the former Soviet republic became independent in 1992 and served as counselor to the foreign minister, advising on international, constitutional, and human rights law issues.
“It was difficult, but it was an exciting time,” he said of the nine months he was there, a period in which the country was largely without electricity and hot running water.
He is a graduate of Northern Illinois University and the Chicago Kent School of Law and has a master’s degree from the American University School of International Service. He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge David Perez.
White-Brown, 46, joined the AQMD in 1991. Her practice includes civil litigation, negotiation and review of public contracts, civil prosecution of air pollution violations, development of environmental rules and regulations, and administrative hearings.
She also serves as the legal member of a quasi-judicial board that hears permit disputes and reviews fee-related matters.
She began her career in 1981 as a civil and family law attorney with Jacoby & Meyers After two years there, she became a deputy district attorney, trying over 170 cases and concluding her service with a stint in the Hard Core Gang Trial Division.
She has served on the boards of Black Women Lawyers and the Environmental Law Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association.
She is a graduate of UCLA and American College of Law. She fills the vacancy created by the elevation of Judge Laurence Rubin to the Court of Appeal.
Copyright 2002, Metropolitan News Company