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Nation’s Only Court Dedicated to Attorney Discipline Sees Judicial Appointments

California is the only state with an independent professional court dedicated to ruling on attorney discipline cases. Following several recent appointments by California’s Supreme Court and the Senate Rules Committee, this 33-year-old institution, known as the State Bar Court, is well situated to continue to carry out its mission: “To hear and decide cases fairly, correctly, and efficiently for the protection of the public, the courts, and the legal profession.” 

Last month, the State Bar Court welcomed the appointment of State Bar Court Review Judge Richard Honn to serve as the State Bar Court’s Presiding Judge. His appointment went into effect when he took the oath of office on August 22, 2022.   

Judge Honn was initially appointed to the State Bar Court by the Supreme Court in 2002 as a Hearing Judge. In 2014, he was elevated by the Supreme Court to the Review Department. Judge Honn will serve as the Presiding Judge for the remaining four years of his current term, through October 31, 2026.   

Judge Honn has extensive legal service, volunteer, and university-level professorial experience. 

In the 1980s, he chaired the Los Angeles County Bar Association's (LACBA) Volunteers in Parole Committee, its Lawyer Referral and Information Service Committee, and its Ad Hoc Committee on Private Judging. He was also a member of LACBA’s Committee on Legal Services to the Poor. 

From 1980 to his appointment to the bench, Judge Honn was also on the faculty of the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses. In June 2003, he was awarded the Marshall School of Business Teaching Award. From 1992 to 1994, he was President of California Special Olympics, an organization serving over 25,000 athletes with disabilities.  

Judge Honn earned his Juris Doctor degree from Loyola Law School in 1978.  Before becoming a State Bar Court Judge, he practiced primarily real estate and business litigation law, and, in 1981, he formed his own firm in downtown Los Angeles.    

Joining Judge Honn on the State Bar Court Review Panel is Judge Tamara Ribas, who was appointed by the California Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created when former Presiding Judge Catherine D. Purcell was appointed to the State Parole Board in November 2021. Judge Ribas will take office November 1, 2022. 

Judge Ribas currently serves as an administrative law judge with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board. She also served as a court-appointed temporary judge in the Superior Court of Contra Costa County, as well as an assistant regional counsel for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where she practiced Native American health law. Judge Ribas earned her Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

In addition, three other State Bar Court Judges were reappointed to the bench—Judge W. Kearse McGill, Judge Cynthia Valenzuela, and Judge Phong Wang.  

The Supreme Court reappointed Judge W. Kearse McGill to a six-year term in the Review Department. 

Judge McGill was elevated to Review Judge in 2016, after previously serving 18 months in the State Bar Court’s Hearing Department.  

Judge McGill’s earlier career includes work as legal counsel to a California state senator. After 10 years of private practice, he was appointed as a workers’ compensation judge on the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board in its Stockton District Office in 2005. In 2013, he was appointed as Presiding Judge of the Stockton District Office.  

Additionally, the California State Bar Board of Trustees appointed Judge McGill to its Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct (COPRAC) in 2013. He served on COPRAC until his appointment to the State Bar Court. Before becoming a judge, Judge McGill was a founding member of SACLEGAL (Sacramento Lawyers for the Equality of Gays and Lesbians) and represented many people and organizations in Sacramento’s LGBTQI community. He earned his Juris Doctor degree from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. 

First appointed in 2016, Judge Cynthia Valenzuela was reappointed by the Supreme Court to a new six-year term in the Hearing Department. 

A graduate of the UCLA School of Law, Judge Valenzuela externed for the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit during law school. Committed to a legal career of public service, she was appointed as a Special Assistant to Cruz Reynoso in his capacity as Vice-Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She then served in the U.S. Department of Justice for eight years as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., and as a federal prosecutor in the Criminal Division in Los Angeles prosecuting violent crimes, complex fraud, and public corruption cases. Judge Valenzuela was the National Litigation Director for MALDEF for over five years, and before becoming a judge served as a Supervising Attorney in the legal office of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.   

The California Senate Rules Committee reappointed Judge Phong Wang to a six-year term in the Hearing Department, where she has served since 2019.  

Judge Wang began her legal career as an associate attorney for the Law Office of Sugarman & Cannon. The firm’s primary practice involves representing criminal defendants in state and federal courts and individuals in licensing and administrative hearings. She then spent the next 20 years, collectively, serving indigent defendants as a trial deputy public defender in San Francisco County and representing death row inmates on appeal and habeas as a deputy California state public defender.  

She earned her law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of Law in 1997. 

The State Bar Court hears charges of attorney misconduct filed by the State Bar’s Office of Chief Trial Counsel and can recommend that the California Supreme Court suspend or disbar attorneys found to have committed acts of professional misconduct. The State Bar Court has the power to also issue public and private reprovals and admonitions and to temporarily remove lawyers from practice when they are deemed to pose a substantial threat of harm to clients or the public.  

The Hearing Department is the trial level of the State Bar Court. Five full-time judicial positions are split between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The Supreme Court appoints two of the hearing judges, while the Governor, the Speaker of the Assembly, and the Senate Committee on Rules appoint one hearing judge each.  

The Review Department is the appellate level of the State Bar Court, consisting of the presiding judge and two other review judges. All review judges are appointed by the Supreme Court.