News Archives

5/22/2009

Judge Hoffman Dies

DALLAS, TX - Judge Hoffman was a District Judge of the 160th District Court (1971-1987), having previously spent 22 years in private practice.  His son, Leonard E. Hoffman III, a lawyer at Jackson Walker LLP, noted that his father was very proud to be a member and former director of the National Conference of Metropolitan Courts and regarded its mission as vital to the judiciary and our country.  The founder of NCMC, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark was a personal friend of Judge Hoffman.  A graduate of the University of Texas Law School, one of Hoffman's notable achievements was his role in integrating the Dallas County Bar Association in the early 1960's.

4/28/2009

Hon. Charles McCoy Honored at Southwestern Law School Awards Event

LOS ANGELES, CA – Southwestern Law School honored Hon. Charles W. “Tim” McCoy, Jr. as Outstanding Friend at its 22nd Annual Awards Recognition Reception on April 16. This annual event allows the Alumni Association and other members of the Southwestern community the opportunity to recognize alumni and friends for their outstanding service. In addition to the awards ceremony and cocktail reception, the evening featured silent and live auctions benefiting the Alumni Scholarship Fund.

First appointed to the bench in 1992, Judge McCoy became the Presiding Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court in January 2009. He previously served as a trial judge, Managing Judge of the Complex Litigation Courts and Supervising Judge of the Civil Courts. He serves on the California Judicial Council, was a member of the Governing Board of the California Center for Judicial Education and Research (CJER), and chaired several committees of the California Judges Association (CJA). He is the President-Elect of the National Conference of Metropolitan Courts.

Prior to joining the bench, he was a partner in the firm of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton's Los Angeles Office, where he practiced for 17 years, and served as Chief of Staff and Chief Deputy to Hon. Matthew Fong ‘85, Vice Chair of the State Board of Equalization. Since 1995, Judge McCoy has been a popular member of Southwestern’s adjunct faculty where he teaches Trial Advocacy.

“I am a friend of Southwestern for 1,000 reasons,” Judge McCoy said. “Southwestern gave me one of the greatest gifts, the opportunity to teach students and that breathes life into me every time I walk into the classroom.”

He also serves on the adjunct faculties of UCLA and Pepperdine Law Schools and Azusa Pacific University, and is the author of the book Why Didn't I Think of That? Think the Unthinkable and Achieve Creative Greatness (Prentice Hall Press, 2002; published in five languages). He has received numerous honors, including the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles’ 2008 Trial Judge of the Year Award. He earned his B.S. degree in industrial management at Purdue University, and his J.D. degree with honors at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.

In November 2007, the National Conference of Metropolitan Courts (NCMC) inked a contract for support services with the National Center for State Courts. It is the first time the Conference, one of the oldest court reform groups in the country, has reached out to another organization for day-to-day operating and management assistance in its 45 year history. Previously, busy presiding judges and court administrators in the nation’s urban courts handled those duties as time permitted, rotating the responsibilities on a yearly basis.

The contract provides for a part-time executive director, assistance with conference planning, membership management, financial planning, liaison with other judicial administration groups, and technology assistance such as website development, explained Mary McQueen, the Center’s President. “We are very pleased to serve urban trial court leaders in this new way, and look forward to a long and productive partnership,” McQueen added.

“The times have changed,” Rufus King, III, Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Superior Court and Chairman of the NCMC Board, said in announcing the new arrangement. “We must boost the ability of the Conference to better serve the nation’s busiest presiding judges and administrators, grow the organization, and address ever more complex problems confronting urban courts in new and more productive ways.”

According to the National Center for State Courts, the principal research, consulting and education think-tank serving state courts, there are 16,000 trial courts in the United States. Only a handful serve the metropolitan population of the country, but they account for more than eighty percent of all case volume ranging from traffic matters to murder cases, and small claims to intellectual property disputes. Metropolitan courts are organized around city, county or regional boundaries and have multiple judges and large court staffs often serving millions of people. The 25 largest urban areas in America account for 42 percent of the nation’s 303+ million people ranging from 18.8 million in the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island region to Cincinnati-Middletown at 2.1 million based on the latest census data as of July 1, 2006.

Kathy Hardcastle, Presiding Judge of the Eighth Judicial District Court in the Greater Las Vegas area and President of the National Conference of Metro Courts this year was instrumental in putting the agreement together. Her court will be the first benefactor as the host for the National Conference’s 45th Annual Meeting and Education Sessions in February 2008. “The National Center has already started to make a difference by helping us develop our education program around the theme ‘Leading Trial Courts in Dangerous Times’. A new feature this year will be two special, in-depth seminars targeting trial court leadership and courthouse design created by the Institute for Court Management which will front-ending the annual meeting and add a new learning dimension we have not had to date,” said Hardcastle.