Wednesday, June 10, 2015
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Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eric Taylor Elected California Judges Assn. President for Second Time
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eric Taylor was elected president of the California Judges Association for the 2015-2016 term by the group’s Executive Board yesterday.
CJA said in a release that Taylor, who held the post in 2003-2004, would be the first two-term president in its history.
The group also elected Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mary Ann Murphy as secretary/treasurer and two vice presidents, Tehama Superior Court Judge C. Todd Bottke and Tulare Superior Court Judge Gary L. Paden.
The new officers will begin their one-year terms Oct. 10.
Taylor, 53, has been active in CJA virtually from the time of his appointment to the bench in 1998. He served as a committee chair and then as a board member for two years before being elected president.
He also served as a member of the Judicial Council’s access and Fairness Committee from 2000-2003, and was a Judicial Council member while serving as CJA president. The group noted in its release yesterday that Taylor “helped to revitalize CJA, overhauling its publications, increasing its presence in Sacramento, and traveling to over 25 counties to increase and solidify membership and to give judges a strong voice throughout the State.”
Taylor was appointed to the Inglewood Municipal Court in 1998, and later served as its presiding judge. Later elevated to the Los Angeles Superior Court, he served as supervising judge of the Southwest District and on several committees, including the Executive Committee.
He was considered for appointment to the Court of Appeal by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2007.
Before becoming a judge, Taylor was a deputy Los Angeles County counsel and a litigation associate at two law firms. A graduate of Dartmouth College, he worked as an extern for state Supreme Court Justice Allen Broussard, now deceased, before completing his law degree at the University of Virginia.
Murphy, 62, has been a Los Angeles Superior Court judge since 1993. A graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook and California Western School of Law, she began her career as a civil litigator at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., returning to California in 1983 to join the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
She left to join Haight, Brown & Bonesteel, where she did pharmaceutical products liability defense and commercial litigation from 1986 until her appointment to the bench by then-Gov. Pete Wilson.
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