Wilson Fills Posts of 2 Retired Superior Court Judges : Appointments: Irvine attorney H. Warren Siegel and Municipal Court jurist David T. McEachen are named.

Gov. Pete Wilson on Monday filled two vacancies in Orange County Superior Court, naming an Irvine attorney to the bench and elevating a Municipal Court judge.

David T. McEachen, a jurist in Orange County Municipal Court for four years, will replace Judge Donald McCartin, who has retired. H. Warren Siegel, an attorney with Jones Day Reavis & Pogue, will assume the spot of retired Judge Robert Todd.

McEachen, 51, worked as an attorney for Cook Brothers Community Bank in Pasadena from 1979 until his appointment in 1990 to the Municipal Court, where he served a recent stint as presiding judge in the Fullerton branch.

During his time on the bench, McEachen has pushed for construction of more jail cells in Orange County to alleviate the chronic overcrowding that has forced authorities to routinely release misdemeanor offenders to make room for more serious criminals. McEachen has advocated using the El Toro and Tustin Marine Corps air stations, which are set for closure, as jail sites.

After earning an undergraduate degree from Oregon State University in 1964 and his law degree from Southwestern University College of Law in 1974, McEachen worked as a legal counsel at Allen Wilson & George Associates, where he started as a clerk. He was an associate counsel at two other law firms from 1977 through 1979.

Siegel, 54, has had a varied career that included stints with the state attorney general’s office and as corporate counsel for two department stores.

A 1959 UCLA graduate, he earned his master’s from the school in 1960 and a law degree from the University of Chicago in 1962. He worked for the attorney general’s office for the next decade, serving as a deputy and later as chief of the business fraud and investment crimes unit in Los Angeles.

From 1971 to 1978 he was an attorney with an Alhambra law firm. Siegel then took a post with Sears Roebuck & Co., serving as general counsel for the department store’s Midwest division. He moved on to a similar post with Montgomery Ward in Chicago in 1982, then returned to private practice in 1986 with Wyman Buatzer Kuchel & Silbert in Newport Beach. In 1990, he moved to Jones Day in Irvine. Siegel lives in San Juan Capistrano.