Gov. Brown Appoints Judges in Alameda and San Francisco Counties

By Bay City News Service

Gov. Jerry Brown Friday appointed two veteran Alameda County assistant public defenders to be judges in the county. Brown also appointed three attorneys to judgeships in the San Francisco County Superior Court. All five judges appointed by Brown Friday are Democrats, as is Brown.

One of the assistant public defenders appointed by Brown to the Alameda County Superior Court bench is Andrew Steckler, 49, of Berkeley, who first joined the public defender’s office in 1994. Steckler has represented a number of defendants accused of murder and other serious crimes, including Moses Kamin, a 15-year-old Oakland boy who pleaded guilty to murdering his adoptive parents in January 2012. Before joining the public defender’s office, Steckler was an associate at Heller Ehrman from 1992 to 1993. He also was an associate at Morrison and Foerster in 1998. He earned a law degree from Harvard Law School and a B.A. degree from Williams College. He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Hugh A. Walker.

The other public defender appointed to the Alameda County Superior Court bench is James Cramer, 55, of Piedmont, who has been in the public defender’s office since 2004. Prior to that, Cramer served as supervising legal research attorney at the Alameda County Superior Court from 2000 to 2004 and was general counsel and project manager at McGuire and Hester from 1996 to 2000. He was an attorney at Cramer and Cramer from 1992 to 1996 and a litigation associate at Bronson, Bronson and McKinnon from 1991 to 1992 and at Bell, Rosenberg and Hughes from 1989 to 1991. Cramer also served as a deputy district attorney in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office from 1987 to 1988. Cramer earned his law degree from the Santa Clara University School of Law and a B.S. degree from Santa Clara University. He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Joan S. Cartwright.

One of the judges appointed by Brown to serve on the San Francisco County Superior Court bench is Ross Moody, 50, of San Francisco, who has served in the civil division of the California Attorney General’s Office since 2007. Prior to that, Moody served as a litigation associate at Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro from 1989 to 1994. Moody earned a law degree from the University of California at Davis School of Law and a B.S. from the UCLA. He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Julie Tang.

Another judge named to the San Francisco County Superior Court is 46-year-old Joseph Quinn of San Francisco, who has been a partner at Hanson Bridgett since 2010. Quinn has been an adjunct professor at the Golden Gate University School of Law since 2010 and was an adjunct professor at St. Mary’s College of California from 2004 to 2008. Quinn was principal and chair of the appellate practice group at Meyers Nave from 2003 to 2010 and an associate at Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk and Rabkin from 2001 to 2003. He served as a principal trial attorney at the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office from 1997 to 2001 and as a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Eugene Lynch from 1996 to 1997.

Quinn also was an associate at Jackson, Tufts, Cole and Black in 1996, served as a law clerk at the U.S. District Court in Northern California from 1995 to 1996 and was a trial attorney in the Federal Defenders Office in San Diego from 1994 to 1995. Quinn earned a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law and a B.A. degree from UCLA. He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge John E. Munter.

The third judge appointed to the San Francisco County Superior Court is 44-year-old Sharon Reardon of San Francisco, who has served as an assistant district attorney in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office since 1998. Reardon previously was an associate at the law office of James P. Collins, who’s now a San Francisco County Superior Court judge, from 1997 to 1998. Reardon earned a law degree from San Francisco Law School and a B.A. degree from Santa Clara University. She fills the vacancy created by the elevation of Judge Marla J. Miller to the state Court of Appeal. The compensation for all of the new judges is $184,610 annually.

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