Friday, August 14, 2009
Page 3
Former U.S. Attorney Debra Wong Yang Named to Police Commission
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa yesterday tapped former U.S. Attorney Debra Wong Yang to serve on the Board of Police Commissioners.
In a release from the mayor’s office, Yang said that she was “honored to have the opportunity to work with the mayor on police issues, the selection of a new chief and making important steps now that the consent decree has ended.”
The nomination must be confirmed by the City Council when it returns from its summer recess.
Yang is a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Los Angeles office, where she serves as co-chair of the firm’s Crisis Management Practice Group and the White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice Group.
Prior to joining the firm in 2006, Yang served as U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. Her 2002 appointment by then-President George W. Bush made her first Asian-American woman to serve as U.S. Attorney.
She had served in the 1990s as an assistant U.S. attorney for approximately seven years, during which time she prosecuted both violent and white-collar crimes, international money laundering, computer crimes and arson.
While at the helm of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles—which employs nearly 260 assistant U.S. attorneys and is the largest U.S. Attorney’s office outside of Washington, D.C.—Yang served on Bush’s Corporate Fraud Tax Force and chaired the attorney general’s Advisory Committee on Civil Rights.
Yang was also selected to serve on then-Attorney General Al- berto R. Gonzales’ advisory committee, and on the Ninth Circuit Jury Reform committee.
In 1997 she was tapped by then-Gov. Pete Wilson for the Los Angeles Municipal Court and was elevated to the superior court by unification in 2000, going on to serve as supervising judge for the Hollywood courthouse.
She has taught trial advocacy as an adjunct professor at the USC School of Law, and has also been an instructor for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy and California’s Judicial College.
A former president of the Chinese American Museum, Yang was also a founding member, officer and board member of the Southern California Chinese Lawyer Association.
Other professional activities have included membership in the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the Association of Business Trial Lawyers and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.
In 2002, both the Inglewood Courts and the Los Angeles City Council honored her for her standing commitment to victims’ rights.
She has received the Asian Pacific Bar Association’s Public Service Award, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association’s Trailblazer Award and the Women’s Leadership Award.
Admitted to the State Bar in 1986, Yang holds a law degree from Boston College Law School and an undergraduate degree from Pitzer College in Claremont. She would be one of two former U.S. attorneys on the panel, the other being Andrea Sheridan Ordin, who was elected vice president of the commission earlier this week.
John Mack is the new commission president, having been elected following the resignation of Anthony Pacheco from the panel. Yang would fill Pacheco’s seat.
Copyright 2009, Metropolitan News Company