Attorney, former family law judge
Richard A. Ibanez, 97, a retired Los Angeles County Superior Court judge who specialized in family law and dependency court, died Nov. 30 of cardiac arrest and coronary artery disease at his home in Los Angeles, said his son Leon. The death was only recently reported.
Ibanez, who had been an attorney in private practice since 1937, was appointed to the bench by Gov. Jerry Brown in 1975 and served through 1994.
In 1968, he helped found the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and was a board member of the Latino advocacy group.
Ibanez was born Oct. 6, 1910, in El Paso. He grew up in Los Angeles after his family moved west so his father could take a job as a Spanish professor at the University of Redlands.
Ibanez graduated from UCLA in 1933 and from UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law in 1937.
He went into private practice in Upland, where he was elected to the City Council, and served in the Army during World War II.
From 1952 to 1974, Ibanez was a partner in former state Atty. Gen. Robert W. Kenny’s law firm.
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