State appellate court justice named to governor's legal team

Justice Martin Jenkins of the 1st District Court of Appeal will be Gov. Gavin Newsom's judicial appointments secretary.

The governor announced Monday his entire legal affairs team. They are: Catherine E. Lhamon, legal affairs secretary; Analea Patterson, chief deputy legal affairs secretary; Kelli Evans, deputy legal affairs secretary for criminal justice; Rei Onishi, deputy legal affairs secretary; and Shubhra Shivpuri, deputy legal affairs secretary.

Jenkins, 65, was appointed to the Court of Appeal in 2008. Previously, he was a federal judge on the Northern District for 11 years. From 1992 to 1997, he served as a judge on the Alameda County Superior Court bench and on the Oakland Municipal Court from 1989 to 1992.

From 1986 to 1989, he was a trial attorney with the Pacific Bell Legal Department of San Francisco and from 1983 to 1986, he worked with the U.S. Department of Justice as a trial attorney. From 1980 to 1983, he worked as a prosecutor for the Alameda County district attorney's office.

Lhamon, 47, is chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. From 2013 to 2017, she served as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education. From 2009 to 2013, she was the director of impact litigation at Public Counsel.

From 1999 to 2009, she practiced law at the ACLU of Southern California, eventually rising to the position of assistant legal director.

Patterson, 47, was a partner at Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe LLP from 2005 to 2018. She served as special assistant for policy and planning for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and as policy and legislative director for Lieutenant Gov. Gray Davis.

She also served as a law clerk for Judge Frank C. Damrell on the Eastern District of California.

Evans, 49, has served as special assistant to state Attorney General Xavier Becerra since 2017. From 2014 to 2017, she served as senior director for the administration of justice at the California State Bar. She has served as a member of federal court-appointed monitoring teams for the Oakland and Cleveland Police Departments.

From 2010 to 2013, Evans was the associate director of the ACLU of Northern California, and previously served as a senior trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Onishi, 37, has served as deputy legal affairs secretary under Gov. Jerry Brown since 2017. From 2015 to 2017, he served as a senior policy adviser and White House Fellow in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

From 2012 to 2015, he served as a deputy state attorney general, and from 2011 to 2012 was a law clerk for the Judge Beverly Martin of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. From 2004 to 2006, he was a legislative aide and Senate fellow in the Office of state Senator Joe Simitian. Onishi is a co-founder of the Buck Fellows Program and past board member of the American Constitution Society Bay Area Lawyer Chapter.

Shivpuri, 36, has served as deputy attorney general of the Civil Rights Enforcement Section at the California Department of Justice since 2017. She was a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, criminal division from 2015 to 2017 and an assistant U.S. attorney from 2011 to 2015. Shivpuri was a litigation associate at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP from 2007 to 2010.