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NEWS > Media Coverage > Alumni in the News > 2005 Stories >
June 2005
Longtime Jurist Kay to Go ADR Route
The Recorder, 6/29/05
Laurence Kay '63, the presiding justice of Division Four of San Francisco's First District Court of Appeal, is retiring after 24 years on three benches.
The 68-year-old justice, elevated to the appellate court in 2000 by then-Gov. Gray Davis, confirmed Tuesday that he is leaving Aug. 31 to take a job doing private dispute resolution.
"I just feel after 24 years that, although this is probably the best job in the judiciary, I'd like to try another challenge," Kay said Tuesday.
Kay was appointed to the San Francisco Municipal Court in 1981 by then-Gov. Jerry Brown and was elevated to the superior court two years later.
Although he wouldn't provide details about his new job, Kay said he had considered a change for a few months.
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BWLA President Wants to Bring Back Old Members
Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, 6/22/05
When Lela D. Johnson '88 was a child, her grandfather -- a doctor who lived to be 100 -- asked her what she was going to do with her life.
"He was one of those people who was to the point," Johnson, 42, the new president of the Black Women Lawyers' Association, said in an interview on Monday. "I said, 'I don't want to be a doctor.' He said, 'You have to be something.' "
So Johnson, who was sworn in as the BWLA's new president on Tuesday evening, decided to become a lawyer.
When she was in seventh grade, Johnson's family moved to Massachusetts from their South Side home in the Chatham neighborhood. But Johnson, a Chicago native, never got over leaving the city. By the time she was in high school in Worcester, Mass., she knew she wanted to return to Chicago for college.
Johnson had already determined that she was going to go to the University of Chicago because its graduates had a high acceptance rate to the nation's top five law schools. She applied early decision, got in, and was soon exploring which majors would help her to position herself as a competitive law school applicant. ...
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The Jefferson Award: Olivia Wang, Prisoners' Rights Advocate
San Francisco Chronicle, 6/22/05
Bay Area Jefferson Award winner: Olivia Wang '01, staff attorney for Legal Services for Prisoners with Children in San Francisco. A committee member for California Habeas Project, Wang also volunteers her legal services for Free Battered Women; both groups are San Francisco-based organizations that work with incarcerated women who are domestic abuse survivors.
How she started: Wang says she's an activist who's always been devoted to social justice issues - eviction defense, public benefits, and immigration and homeless rights. After graduating from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley in 2001, she began working with domestic-violence survivors. Wang won a two-year New Voices Fellowship from the Ford Foundation to work with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and Free Battered Women. Compelled by the cause of prisoners' rights, she stayed with the organizations after completing her fellowship.
And now: A new law that passed this year allows prisoners' rights activists to provide legal aid to women currently in prison as a result of crimes connected to domestic abuse, said Wang. She and her California Habeas Project colleagues are in the process of screening prisoners to see who is eligible to receive assistance. The group is also recruiting volunteer lawyers, social workers, advocates and law students. So far, 12 female prisoners have been released as a result of the group's efforts. "These are 12 lives, people who literally would have spent their lives in prison," Wang said. She expects dozens more to be released in the coming years. She said her group spends roughly three years on each case, acknowledging that it is a very slow process. "But we've only just begun," she adds. ...
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Governor Names Six to Fill Los Angeles Superior Court Vacancies
Metropolitan News Enterprise, 6/14/05
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday named seven judges to fill longstanding vacancies on the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Tapped for the positions were Superior Court Commissioners Martha Bellinger and Roger Ito, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lawrence Cho and Beverly Reed O'Connell, Deputy County Counsel Dalila Corral, and veteran litigator Rex Heeseman. ...
Corral, 47, has served in the Los Angeles County Counsel's Office since 1990. As principal deputy county counsel, she has represented the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department as its chief legal advisor since 1997.
Corral was previously an associate with the law firm of Rosenfeld, Meyer & Susman from 1987 to 1990 and an associate with the firm of Pettit & Martin from 1984 to 1987. She earned her law degree from Boalt Hall School and her undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California.
She fills the vacancy created by the death of Judge L. Jeffrey Wiatt.
Corral said she was "thrilled and very honored" to receive the appointment and hopes to be sworn in in the next couple of weeks. ...
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Superior Court Judge Terry Friedman to Become CJA President
Metropolitan News-Enterprise, 6/13/05
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry Friedman has been named president of the California Judges Association for 2005-2006.
The selection was made Thursday by the group's Executive Board at its regular meeting in Sacramento. Friedman will be sworn in Sept. 11 at the association's annual meeting.
Also sworn in that time will be San Diego Superior Court Judge Joan Lewis-for a second term-and Fresno Superior Court Brad R. Hill as vice presidents and San Diego Superior Court Judge Lisa Guy-Schall.as secretary-treasurer.
Friedman, 54, was elected to the Superior Court in 1994. After eight years in the state Assembly, he won a judgeship after a hotly contested, high-spending runoff campaign.
Friedman spent his first seven years on the bench in juvenile court, serving as supervising judge of the dependency courts and later as presiding juvenile court judge. He currently hears a civil calendar in Santa Monica.
He also chaired the Juvenile Court Judges of California, and has served on the CJA board since 2003. Before joining the board, he wrote articles for the association's journal on judicial-legislative relations and on judicial elections. ...
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Oakland's Johnnie Cochran; John Burris is the Go-To Man When You're on the Wrong Side of the Cops
San Francisco Chronicle, 6/5/05
You can't find Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris '73, 59, in the Yellow Pages and you can't find him in the white pages under B or even J. You have to look under L for Law Offices of.
How did this 77-year-old tackled by cops on the Carquinez Bridge find you?
I never know where people come from. Mainly it's referrals. It's a combination of being in the news with controversial cases, and I'm old.
What first got you in the news?
It was the Melvin Black case. In 1979, a 14-year-old African American kid was shot and killed by the Oakland Police Department. I had been working in the D.A.'s office and was appointed to be the independent investigator.
What did you learn from that case?
The police have an abiding interest in maintaining a perspective that has nothing to do with the facts. They will do whatever to create the impression that what they did was right. ...
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Edith Jones and Theodore Olson: as Washington Convulses Over Senate Approval of Judicial Nominations, We Talk Law and Judges with Two of America's Top Legal Figures: Former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, and Federal Judge Edith Jones
The American Enterprise, 6/1/05
Ted Olson '65 is one Of America's pre-eminent lawyers, having argued more than 40 cases before the Supreme Court. As U.S. solicitor general from 2001 to 2004, he represented the nation in arguments deciding affirmative action policies, U.S. campaign finance laws, the legal treatment of terrorists, and other hot-button topics. Before that, Olson successfully represented George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore, the climactic Supreme Court decision on Election 2000. On September 11, 2001, Olson's life was touched by tragedy: his wife Barbara, an attorney and bestselling author, perished in the plane crashed against the Pentagon by terrorists. In 2004, Olson government service for private practice. ...
TAE: Tell us about how you grew up.
OLSON: My family moved to California--the Bay area--when I was seven or eight years old. My father was with United Airlines. I went to public schools in California and eventually law school in Berkeley.
TAE: How did you choose Berkeley?
OLSON: I was the oldest of five kids and my family was not in a position to spend a lot of money to send me to law school. Berkeley was very inexpensive. And it was a good school, close to home. That was a great time to be a Republican in Berkeley, amidst Barry Goldwater's campaign! Those were years upheaval and revolt, and Berkeley was a very radical place. I think there were fewer than ten of us in the Republican group at the law school. ...
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