NEWS RELEASE Superior Court of COUNTY OF 400 McAllister Street, Room 205 San Francisco, CA 94102-4512 T. MICHAEL YUEN Phone: 415-551-5737 COURT EXECUTIVE OFFICER FAX: 415-551-5701

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RELEASE DATE: June 4, 2013 THREE NEW JUDGES TAKE THE BENCH IN THE SAN FRANCISCO SUPERIOR COURT

New Appointments Reduce Judicial Vacancies in SF to Three

SAN FRANCISCO -- Presiding Judge Cynthia Ming-mei Lee today announced judicial

assignments for the San Francisco Bench’s three new Judges, Tracie L. Brown, Harry M. Dorfman

and Rochelle C. East.

Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. announced the San Francisco judicial appointments on May

21, 2013. They all have been sworn-in as Judges and are beginning their new judicial

assignments, effective yesterday.

Judge Brown, 42, will hear criminal trials in Department 13 and Judge East will preside

over preliminary hearings in Department 11, both at the Hall of Justice. Judge Dorfman has been

assigned to Department 505 in the Civic Center Courthouse and will hear civil cases.

Several Judges at the Hall of Justice were reassigned as a result of the new Judges’

assignments. Judge Brendan Conroy will move from trials in Department 13 to preliminary

hearings in Department 12; Judge Richard B. Ulmer, Jr., who was previously presiding in

Department 12, is moving to Department 18 at the Hall of Justice, where he will preside over

Drug Court and other matters.

-MORE- BACKGROUND ON NEW SAN FRANCISCO JUDGES

Judge Brown is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, where she served since 2002. She was an associate at Cooley Godward Kronish LLP from 1997 to 2002 and served as a judicial law clerk for Judge Margaret McKeown from 1998 to 1999. Brown also was a law clerk and associate at Morrison & Foerster LLP from 1995 to 1997. She earned a J.D. degree from the University of California Berkeley School of Law and a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard-

Radcliffe University. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Kevin McCarthy.

Judge Dorfman is the former Managing Attorney at the San Francisco District Attorney’s

Office Homicide Unit since 2010. He was a professor at San Francisco Law School from 2001 to

2011 and chief counsel for the California Assembly Committee on Public Safety from 1999 to

2000. Dorfman earned a J.D. degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University. He fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Donna Little.

Judge East is the former Chief Deputy Attorney General at the California Department of

Justice since 2011, where she served as senior assistant attorney general in the Correctional Law

Section from 2008 to 2011 and deputy attorney general and supervising deputy attorney general from 2000 to 2004 and from 2005 to 2008. East worked in Haiti as a U.S. Department of State foreign service officer from 2004 to 2005. She was an associate attorney at Schachter Kristoff

Orenstein and Berkowitz from 1996 to 2000 and a judicial extern at the California Supreme Court in 1996. East served in the U.S. Navy from 1983 to 1993. She earned a J.D. degree from the

University of San Francisco School of Law and a Bachelor’s degree from Stanford University. She fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Jerome T. Benson.

The San Francisco Superior Court Bench is comprised of 52 Judges and one Commissioner.

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