Brown chooses his last appeals court nominees

With three appointments Tuesday, along with a jurist promoted to presiding justice, outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown has now fully stocked the state appeals courts.

Overall, the governor's last batch of nominees are older and generally more traditional picks than Brown usually makes. All are white male Democrats with strong public sector backgrounds.

California Environmental Protection Agency Undersecretary Gordon B. Burns, 52, was named to the 1st District Court of Appeal, Division Five, while Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Brian S. Currey, 62, was picked for the 2nd District Court of Appeal, Division Four.

In addition to the three new justices, Brown tapped Laurence D. Rubin, 72, as the new presiding justice of the 2nd District Court of Appeal, Division Five. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John Shepard Wiley Jr., 65, was chosen to replace Rubin on the 2nd District, Division Eight.

Rubin has spent half of his life on the bench. The son of renowned Hollywood entertainment lawyer Edward Rubin who represented Paul Newman and Warren Beatty, the justice started his career as a clerk for state Supreme Court Justice Stanley Mosk.

WILEY

He spent a decade in private practice, mainly at Kaplan, Livingston, Goodwin, Berkowitz & Selvin in Beverly Hills. Rubin was a judge in the Santa Monica Municipal Court for two decades, then spent a brief stint on the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Gov. Gray Davis appointed him to the 2nd District Court of Appeal in 2001, where he has developed a reputation as a political progressive and intellectual.

Kent L. Richland, a founding partner with Greines, Martin, Stein & Richland LLP in Los Angeles, was Rubin's classmate at UCLA School of Law.

"He was certainly at the top of our class," Richland said. "He's also just an extremely likable human being. To be a leader on the Court of Appeal, obviously that's a very important quality as well."

Richland noted Rubin has authored an opinion while serving as pro tem on the California Supreme Court. Justice Kathryn M. Werdegar concurred with his dissent in Gregory v. Cott, 2014 DJDAR 10271.

"Larry is someone I consider a friend. Just as importantly, he's a wonderful jurist," said Patricia L. Glaser, partner and litigation chair at Glaser Weil Fink Howard Avchen & Shapiro LLP in Los Angeles.

Glaser praised Wiley as an "out of the box" thinker. She said she's appeared several times in his court.

CURREY

"We're lucky to have people of this quality willing to be judges for a lot less money than a lot of people make as private attorneys," Glaser said.

Wiley brings a diverse resume, which includes clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., working as an examiner for the Commission on Judicial Performance, serving as counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and teaching at UCLA School of Law for 22 years. Davis appointed him to the bench in 2002.

Brown named Currey to the superior court in 2014. He's known for his work as counsel to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; Currey served as deputy mayor for economic and business policy for several months before Villaraigosa left office in 2013. He also spent three decades with O'Melveny & Myers LLP.

Brown appointed Burns to the state Environmental Protection Agency in 2011. Prior to that, he was an attorney with the Resources Law Group LLP, a Sacramento environmental law firm. He spent well over a decade at the state Department of Justice as a deputy attorney general and later a deputy solicitor general.

All four will be evaluated by the Commission on Judicial Appointments in San Francisco on Dec. 21. Three other recent Brown picks will also be up that day: appeals court nominees Tracie L. Brown and Ioana Petrou, along with his long-awaited choice for the state Supreme Court, Joshua Groban.