Governor Names Four to Los Angeles Superior Court

Friday, July 25, 2003

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Governor Names Four to Los Angeles Superior Court

By a MetNews Staff Writer

A court commissioner, a female partner at O’Melveny & Myers, a Long Beach insurance litigator and a High Desert business attorney were named yesterday to the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Commissioner Joseph Shiro Biderman of Santa Monica, named a Los Angeles Municipal Court commissioner in 1994, became a Superior Court commissioner upon court unification in 2000. He handles misdemeanor cases and preliminary hearings downtown.

Biderman, 47, earned his law degree at UCLA and has been a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., a deputy public defender in Los Angeles, and managing counsel at Honda North America. He was appointed a court commissioner six months after joining the Los Angeles office of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro.

Biderman was named Municipal Court Commissioner of the Year in 2000 by the Century City Bar Association.

Holly Kendig, 55, joined O’Melveney & Myers in 1975 and was the firm’s first woman litigation partner. She earned her law degree at Yale.

Kendig has a master’s degree from Tufts University and taught high school history for two years before law school.

James D. Otto, 54, joined the Long Beach firm of Altman, Otto & Kong in 2001 after 25 years with Cummins & White, including service as that firm’s managing partner. His practice has emphasized complex insurance cases and toxic torts.

Otto’s law degree is from Northwestern University. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a former member of the State Bar Board of Governors.

Brian Yep of Palmdale is a partner in the Lancaster firm of Walsh, Delaney & Yep. The 44-year-old attorney is vice president of the Antelope Valley Bar Association.

Yep earned his law degree at UC Davis and has a general civil practice with mostly small business and non-profit clients. He has been a hearing officer with the Antelope Valley Air Pollution Control District and a judge pro tem, arbitrator and mediator for the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Biderman replaces Judge Robert D. Mackey, who retired; Kendig assumes a seat vacated by the retirement of Judge J. Michael Byrne; Otto replaces Judge S. James Otero, now on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California; and Yep fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Raymond D. Mireles.

All four judges will earn salaries of $139,476.