September 19, 2003 - Berkeley Daily Planet: New Alameda County Superior Court Judge John Marshall True III served in Peace Corps in Nepal and in Afghanistan

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Nepal: Peace Corps Nepal : The Peace Corps in Nepal: September 19, 2003 - Berkeley Daily Planet: New Alameda County Superior Court Judge John Marshall True III served in Peace Corps in Nepal and in Afghanistan

By Admin1 (admin) on Sunday, September 21, 2003 - 11:51 am: Edit Post

New Alameda County Superior Court Judge John Marshall True III served in Peace Corps in Nepal and in Afghanistan



New Alameda County Superior Court Judge John Marshall True III served in Peace Corps in Nepal and in Afghanistan

Davis Picks Berkeley Lawyer for Judgeship
By RICHARD BRENNEMAN (09-19-03)

Gov. Gray Davis Thursday named Berkeley attorney John Marshall True III to the Alameda County Superior Court. A graduate of UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall, True is a partner with Leonard Carder LLP, an Oakland law firm.
A practitioner of employment law, True won’t be the only member of his family to wear judicial silk. His wife, Claudia Wilkin, is a judge of the U.S. District Court.

“I look forward to no longer being overruled at the dinner table,” he quipped.

Though he got the word officially Wednesday night from Burt Pines, the former Los Angeles City Attorney and the governor’s judicial appointments secretary, he had received hints as early as last spring.

“A while back someone suggested I might not want to take a vacation around this time,” he said.

The new jurist didn’t take straight to law school after earning his bachelor’s degree. “I spent six years in the Peace Corps in Nepal and in Afghanistan,” he said.

He moved to Berkeley in 1972 to attend Boalt, and has lived here ever since. After winning his law degree, he spent three-and-a-half years as an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board in Oakland and San Francisco before entering private practice.

In 1985, True joined the staff of the Legal Aid Society of San Francisco, leaving in 1994. He had been with Leonard Carder for almost three years when his appointment came.

True’s specialty has been representing workers in employee rights wage and hour litigation, and he has been serving as a mediator for the U.S. District Court.

He has chaired the State Bar of California’s Labor Employment Law Section.

He and his wife have two children, Peter, a senior at Berkeley High and editor of the school newspaper, and Sarah, a ninth grader.

“I’m excited and quite pleased about the appointment,” he said. “It’s going to be a whole new professional life. I’ve been practicing 28 years in a quite specialized area of the law, and now I’m going to have to jump out of the boat and learn to swim all over again. It’s quite exciting.”

True doesn’t know what assignment he’ll draw on the Alameda County bench. “I’ll be contacting the presiding judge, and he’ll take it from there.”

True was one of two Boalt Hall grads Gov. Davis named to the Alameda County Superior Court Thursday. The other is First Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Clay of San Francisco, 48, who serves is the Science Advisory Board of UC Berkeley’s College of Letters and Science.

Clay has practiced law in Alameda County since 1981. He earned his undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and his law degree from UC San Francisco.

He practiced in Oakland for 22 years doing criminal and entertainment law specializing in hip-hop musicians before joining the U.S. Attorney’s office a year ago as second in command.

“I’m not certain when I’ll start,” Clay said. “I guess it depends on what the Ninth Circuit does with the recall. If they go ahead with the election, then I guess I’ll have to get sworn in before October 7,” the date of the gubernatorial recall until the federal judges put the election on hold earlier this week.



Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

Story Source: Berkeley Daily Planet

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Law; Politics; COS - Afghanistan; COS - Nepal

PCOL7809
48

.


Add a Message


This is a public posting area. Enter your username and password if you have an account. Otherwise, enter your full name as your username and leave the password blank. Your e-mail address is optional.
Username:  
Password:
E-mail: