Candidate for
Judge - Superior Court; County of Santa Clara; Office 5

I was born in Merced, California -- then a small San Joaquin Valley town whose economy depended on agriculture, dairy production, and nearby Castle Air Force Base. During one high school summer, I sorted cantaloupes in a Los Baņos packing shed. Growing up, I lived for periods of time in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., and attended high schools there, as well as in Merced.

After high school, I started at Pomona College in Claremont, California, then transferred to Stanford University. I was graduated from Stanford with distinction and with honors in political science. After college, I attended law school at the University of California at Davis' Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall. During law school, I wrote an article that was published in the UCD Law Review, and was a co-editor of the school paper, The Advocate.

In my more than 37 years as a lawyer, I have represented citizens, children, small and large businesses, and employee organizations as a litigator and as a counselor. I began my legal career as a deputy district attorney for the Los Angeles County District Attorney, working in the Downtown Criminal Courts building, and then the Huntington Park DA's office, prosecuting misdemeanor jury trials and felony preliminary hearings. When my wife and I relocated to the Bay Area, I was hired as a deputy district attorney in San Mateo County. There, I prosecuted both misdemeanors and felonies in jury and court trials.

In 1979, I started my civil law career, and began developing my practice in the law of the workplace. For more than five years, a major part of my practice was representing members of the California Highway Patrol in disciplinary hearings throughout California.

I first began practicing in San Jose 19 years ago. Since 1999, I have served as special counsel in the San Jose office of Littler Mendelson, the largest labor and employment law firm in the United States. Throughout my career, I have conducted bench and jury trials in state and federal courts. As a CASA and a deputy district attorney, I have practiced in the juvenile court division of the Superior Court.

My wife of 39 years and I have two adult daughters, both of whom were born in and graduated from middle and high school (and one, from college) in Santa Clara County. I've been a member of the League of Women Voters and the Bay Area Orienteering Club. My hobbies include baseball, reading history, biographies, and fiction, and trying to keep in shape.