Brown Names 16 to Superior Courts, Eight of Them Here

Friday, December 6, 2013

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Brown Names 16 to Superior Courts, Eight of Them Here

By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer


DEBORAH S. BRAZIL *Superior Court Judge-Designate*	CARL H. MOOR *Superior Court Judge-Designate*	CONNIE R. QUINONES *Superior Court Judge-Designate*	ARMEN TAMZARIAN *Superior Court Judge-Designate*

SERGIO C. TAPIA *Superior Court Judge-Designate*	LEE W. TSAO *Superior Court Judge-Designate*	FRANK M. TAVELMAN *Superior Court Judge-Designate*	JOEL WALLENSTEIN *Superior Court Judge-Designate*

Gov. Jerry Brown yesterday named 16 new superior court judges, including eight to the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Tapped for positions here were Deborah S. Brazil, Carl H. Moor, Connie R. Quinones, Armen Tamzarian, Sergio C. Tapia, Lee W. Tsao, Frank M. Tavelman and Joel Wallenstein.

Brazil, 54, has been a Los Angeles deputy district attorney since 1997, serving in multiple units including the Major Crimes Division, Hardcore Gang Division, Family Violence Division, Central Trial Unit 13, and the Pasadena Juvenile Office, East Los Angeles Branch and the Malibu and Beverly Hills area offices. She is a graduate of UCLA and Southwestern Law School. She fills a seat that has been vacant since a commissioner position was converted last year.

Moor, 52, of Los Angeles, has worked at Munger Tolles and Olson LLP since 2001 and has been a partner there since 2003. He served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California from 1994 to 1999 and from 2000 to 2001, having worked as litigation counsel at the National Broadcasting Company Inc. in between.

After graduating from Swarthmore College and Yale Law School, Moor clerked for U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer of the Central District and was an associate and public interest fellow at Hall and Phillips before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Richard A. Adler April 1.

Quinones, 49, has served as a Los Angeles County deputy alternate public defender since 1996, and has been a senior trial attorney there since 2004. She was a county deputy public defender from 1991 to 1996 and was an attorney at the Law Offices of Michael Lopiano in 1991. She was a law clerk and attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Orange County and Community Legal Services of Los Angeles County from 1987 to 1991.

A graduate of UC Irvine and Western State College of Law, Quinones fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge John S. Fisher Feb. 22.

Tamzarian, 47, has served as a senior attorney at this district’s California Court of Appeal since 2008. He was a partner at Case Knowlson Jordan and Wright LLP from 2002 to 2008, after having been an associate at that firm from 1997 to 2002.

Tamzarian served as a Los Angeles County Superior Court research attorney from 1996 to 1997. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Southwestern Law School.

He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Dudley W. Gray Feb. 19.

Tapia, 45, has been a deputy alternate public defender since 2001. He currently serves as deputy in charge of central trial support and coordinator of new felony attorney training, a post to which he was named last year, and was assistant deputy in charge of the Alhambra and Long Beach branch offices from 2009 to 2011.

He was a deputy public defender from 1997 to 2001 and a staff attorney and AmeriCorps fellow at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles from 1996 to 1997. A graduate of UC Berkeley and the University of Iowa College of Law, he serves on the boards of the Mexican American Bar Association and California Rural Legal Assistance Inc.

He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Jan G. Levine Feb. 13.

Tsao, 46, has served as a deputy public defender since 1997. He was a staff attorney at the Public Counsel Law Center, Immigrants’ Rights Project from 1996 to 1997.

Tsao graduated from UC Berkeley and USC Gould School of Law, and fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Peter J. Meeka March 29.

Tavelman, 47, has been a deputy district attorney since 1999 and has been assigned to the Crimes Against Peace Officers Section since 2006. He was in-house counsel at the Capital Group Companies Inc. from 1992 to 1998.

He graduated from California State University, Northridge and Southwestern Law School and fills the vacancy created by the conversion of a court commissioner position last year. He ran unsuccessfully for Los Angeles city attorney in 2001 and for the State Bar Board of Governors in 2003 and 2004.

Wallenstein, 53, has been a commissioner of the court since 2005. He served as house counsel at the California State Compensation Insurance Fund from 2003 to 2005.

He was a deputy public defender from 1989 to 1997 and a Los Angeles Superior Court referee from 1997 to 2002. He is a graduate of Loyola Marymount University and the University of West Los Angeles School of Law, which he attended at night while working as a courtroom clerk.

He ran for the now-defunct Antelope Municipal Court in 1998. He fills the vacancy created by the conversion of a court commissioner position last year.

Named to judgeships in other counties were Assistant District Attorney Thomas A. Glazier, Jones Day partner Martha K. Gooding, and former Assistant Public Defender Robert A. Knox—now in private practice—to the Orange Superior Court; Riverside Deputy County Counsel Sunshine S. Sykes to the Riverside Superior Court; San Bernardino Superior Court Commissioner Khymberli S.Y. Apaloo as a judge of that court; Deputy Public Defender Michael B. Sheltzer to the Tulare Superior Court; Salinas City Attorney Vanessa W. Vallarta to the Monterey Superior Court; and Sonora sole practitioner Kate Segerstrom to the Tuolumne Superior Court.

Sykes is a member of the Navajo Nation and is believed to be the first Native American named a judge of the Riverside Superior Court. Fourteen of the 16 judges named yesterday are Democrats; Brazil and Glazier are Republicans.

The current salary of a superior court judge is $181,292.