Seven Appointed to Los Angeles Superior Court

Metropolitan News-Enterprise

Friday, November 30, 2018

Page 1

Seven Appointed to Los Angeles Superior Court

Brown Chooses Five for Judgeships in Other Counties

By a MetNews Staff Writer

JEFFREY S. COHEN

Deputy Public Defender

DANIEL M. CROWLEY

Attorney

ALEXANDER C.D. GIZA

Attorney

MARY E. KELLY

Administrative Law Judge

DAVID K. REINERT

Deputy District Attorney

HOLLY A. THOMAS

CDFEH Deputy Director

JESSICA A. UZCATEGUI

Attorney

Gov. Jerry Brown yesterday appointed seven persons to the Los Angeles Superior Court, and made one appointment to the trial court in each of five other counties.

Ten of the 12 appointees are Democrats and two are independents. Their ages range from 38 to 67.

Among the appointees in other counties is a gubernatorial aide.

The seven named to the bench in Los Angeles County are:

Daniel M. Crowley, 58. He has been a partner at Booth, Mitchel and Strange LLP since 1992, and was an associate there from 1987-92. His law degree is from the University of California at San Diego.

Alexander C.D. Giza, 51. A Hueston Hennigan LLP partner since 2015, he was a partner at Russ, August and Kabat from 2009-14, and was an associate at Irell and Manella LLP 2001-08 and counsel in 2009. He was awarded a law degree by UCLA.

Mary E. Kelly, 65. She has been an administrative law judge with the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board since 2004 and was an assistant federal public defender and supervising trial attorney at the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the Central District of California from 1995-04. Her J.D. is from DePaul University College of Law in Chicago.

Jeffrey S. Cohen-Laurie, 43. He has been a Los Angeles deputy alternate public defender since 2008, and was a deputy public defender in the county from 2006-08. He is a UCLA School of Law graduate.

David K. Reinert, 43. He has been a Los Angeles deputy district attorney since 2005. In 2016, he was vice president of the Los Angeles County Bar Association and was chosen by the organization’s Nominating Committee to move up the ladder to become senior vice president, but a reform movement that year put up a rival slate of candidates; Reinert was defeated by Deputy City Attorney Philip H. Lam by a vote of 1,284 to 436. He is an alumnus of the USC School of Law.

Holly A. Thomas, 38. She is deputy director of executive programs at the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, a post she has held since leaving the New York attorney general’s Office of the Solicitor General in 2016. Before that, the Yale Law School graduate was senior appellate attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, in the Appellate Section of the Civil Rights Division, from 2010-15 and was assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. from 2005-10.

Jessica A. Uzcategui, 43. She is a partner at Sacks, Glazier, Franklin and Lodise, where she has worked since 2004. Her law degree is from Harvard.

Five vacancies remain on the Los Angeles Superior Court, with two more expected. Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Brian Currey and John Shepard Wiley have been appointed to the Court of Appeal for this district and will take office if confirmed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments when it meets Dec. 21 in San Francisco.

Outside Los Angeles County, Brown’s appointments include one judge each to Kern, Napa, Orange, Sacramento and Sutter superior courts.

Appointments of Aides

Brown’s appointee to the Sacramento Superior Court is Daniel J. Calabretta, 40. He has been a deputy legal affairs secretary to Brown since 2013, and will continue in that capacity until the end of Brown’s term, Jan. 7, with work yet to do; it is anticipated that the lame duck govern or will leave no judicial vacancy unfilled.

The Commission on Judicial Appointments on Monday confirmed the appointments of two other deputy legal affairs secretaries to Court of Appeal posts—Gabriel P. Sanchez, 42, in the First District and Peter Krause, 49, in the Third District.

The governor has also appointed his senior legal advisor, Josh Groban, to the California Supreme Court. The commission will act on that appointment on Dec. 21.

67-Year-Old

Brown’s appointee to the Kern Superior Court is a 67-year-old sole practitioner, Therese M. Foley.

The governor yesterday also appointed private practitioner H. Shaina Colover, 45, to the Orange Superior Court; Sutter Superior Court research attorney Laura J. Davis, 44, to the Sutter Superior Court; and Napa Superior Court Commissioner Monique S. Langhorne to the Napa Superior Court.

The two appointees who have not indicated a party preference are Giza and Davis.

In making the appointments after Oct. 7—three months before the governor’s term ends—there is an exception to the usual requirement of Government Code §12011.5 that a person not be named to the bench until the State Bar Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation has supplied a rating, or until 90 days have passed since the name was submitted.