Davis Appoints Four Women to Superior Court Judgeships

Gov. Gray Davis announced the appointment Friday of four women to Los Angeles County Superior Court bench seats, including one who will be a third-generation judge.

Appointee Robin Miller Sloan, 42, of Altadena is the granddaughter of former Los Angeles Municipal Judge Loren Miller.

Before he became a judge, the late Miller was a noted attorney who took major civil rights cases, filing briefs in the segregation case Brown vs. Board of Education. He also helped to strike down restrictive covenants on real estate.

Sloan’s father also is a retired Superior Court judge.

She is a deputy attorney general who works in the health, education and welfare section. A graduate of UCLA and McGeorge School of Law, she is a former prosecutor with the Los Angeles city attorney’s office.

The other appointees are Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Lisa Mangay Chung, 37, of Santa Clarita and civil litigators Donna Fields Goldstein, 55, of Studio City and Nancy L. Newman, 47, of Playa del Rey.

“These candidates bring a lot of variety of experience to the table,” said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for Davis. The governor, he said, is “interested in bringing more diversity to the bench, more women and minorities. He’s also looking at bringing in better quality.”

All of the appointees will assume the duties once held by municipal judges, presiding over civil and criminal matters that range from tenant-landlord disputes to felony preliminary hearings. Their annual salary will be $139,476.

Chung has served as a county prosecutor for 11 years. A member of the Korean American and Philippine American bar associations, Chung earned her undergraduate degree at Vassar College. She studied law at Tulane Law School.

Goldstein, a partner in the law firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, specializes in complex civil litigation -- lawsuits that involve numerous defendants and expert witnesses. A former trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, she graduated from Beaver College and Rutgers School of Law.

Newman is a partner in the law firm of Knapp, Petersen & Clarke. She specializes in insurance defense, product liability and general casualty cases. She graduated from UCLA and Southwestern Law School.