2 board members move to bench

Two former members of the Board of Governors have joined four other board members from the 1990s who have moved onto the bench.

Gov. Pete Wilson recently appointed Dallas Holmes, 55, superior court judge for the county of Riverside, replacing Judge James Ward, who was elevated to the Fourth District Court of Appeal. (Ward also served on the bar Board of Governors from 1981-84.)

Joseph Bergeron, 56, was elected superior court judge for the county of San Mateo in the November general election.

A member of the Judicial Council since 1994, Holmes joined the Riverside firm of Best Best & Kreiger in 1968, becoming a partner in 1974.

He earned a bachelor's degree from Pomona College in 1962, a master's degree from the London School of Economics at the University of London in 1964 and a juris doctorate degree from Boalt Hall in 1967.

He is a former adjunct professor of law at Hastings College of Law and the University of California at Riverside Graduate School of Management.

A longtime bar activist, he served on the State Bar Board of Governors from 1990-93.

Also a longtime bar activist, Bergeron served on the Board of Governors from 1991-94 and was a member of the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation (JNE) in 1987. He has served on the board of the San Mateo County Bar Association and was president of the county's trial lawyers association.

He has been an arbitrator, judge pro tem and business law instructor at a community college. Bergeron earned his bachelor's degree from St. Bonaventure University in 1962 and his law degree from Boalt Hall in 1968.

Appointed earlier

Several colleagues of Holmes' and Bergeron's, members of the board in the early 1990s, have been seated on the bench in recent years.

Former board member Ned Huntington was appointed superior court judge for San Diego County in 1995, while Robert Oliver now sits on the municipal bench in Fresno.

Judge Charles Vogel, with the 2nd District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles, served as president of the State Bar in 1990-91 following his three-year term as a bar governor. (His wife, Miriam Tigerman Vogel, also is an appellate judge in Los Angeles.)

Judge Lawrence Crispo, a 1990-93 member of the board, currently is a superior court judge for Los Angeles County.

Former board member John F. Kraetzer (1989-92) sits on the superior court bench in Alameda County.

Margaret Morrow, elected the first woman president of the Board of Governors in 1993, has been nominated by President Clinton for a federal judgeship.

With Clinton now serving a second term, her nomination is expected to be approved.