A Manhattan Beach man who was a deputy mayor and chief counsel for former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was among two Los Angeles Superior Court judges appointed Tuesday by Gov. Jerry Brown as associate justices of California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal.
Brian S. Currey, 62, of Manhattan Beach, was named a Superior Court judge in 2014 after serving as the deputy mayor for economic and business policy for Villaraigosa in 2013 and counsel to the mayor from 2010 to 2013. He was a partner at O’Melveny and Myers LLP from 1989 to 2010.
John Shepard Wiley Jr., 65, of Los Angeles, has been a Superior Court judge since 2002. He was a policy consultant at the Federal Trade Commission in 2001, a special master at the U.S. District Court’s Central District of California from 2000 to 2001, a teacher at the Federal Judicial Center from 1995 to 2008, an examiner for the Commission on Judicial Performance and of counsel at Mayer Brown from 1995 to 1999, and a visiting professor at Harvard Law School in 1998.
Wiley worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Central District of California from 1990 to 1994, and taught at the UCLA School of Law from 1983 to 2005.
In another judicial appointment, Laurence D. Rubin, 72, of Los Angeles, was named presiding justice of Division 5 for the 2nd District Court of Appeal. Rubin has been an associate justice for the 2nd District Court of Appeal since 2001 and was previously a Los Angeles Superior Court judge in 2001 and a Municipal Court judge in Santa Monica from 1982 to 2001.
All three are Democrats whose appointments require confirmation by the state’s Commission on Judicial Appointments.