FIVE CANDIDATES CERTIFIED FOR STATE BAR BOARD OF GOVERNORS

MEDIA CONTACT:  Diane Curtis   415-538-2028   diane.curtis@calbar.ca.gov

San Francisco, July 09, 2009 — Five attorneys have been chosen to serve three-year terms on the State Bar’s Board of Governors, it was announced today.

Clark Gehlbach of Roseville won the District 1 seat; Cheryl Hicks of Oakland won the District 3 seat; Lowell Carruth of Fresno won the District 5 seat; Patrick Kelly of Los Angeles won the District 7 seat, and Wells Lyman of La Mesa won the District 9 seat.

The new members of the board, the governing and policymaking body of the more than 222,000-member organization, will be sworn in at the bar’s annual meeting Sept. 12 in San Diego.

Gehlbach, 43, a Placer County deputy district attorney who also ran for the board in 2003, is a board member of both the Auburn Union Elementary School District and the Placer Public Employees Organization. He is a graduate of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and UC-Hastings College of the Law.

Hicks, 50, is a solo practitioner in Oakland specializing in juvenile dependency, family law and plaintiffs personal injury law. She received the Myer J. Sankary Attorney of the Year Award in 2008 for community and service leadership and the Alameda County Bar Association Distinguished Service Service Award for 2009. She is a past president of the Alameda County Bar Association. Hicks is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and UC-Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law.

Carruth, 71, is of counsel with McCormick Barstow LLP in Fresno, where he handles business and commercial litigation, products liability, professional malpractice, general negligence, insurance bad faith and wrongful termination. He is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers, was president of the San Joaquin Valley chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates and is active in the Association of Defense Counsel of Northern California. He is a graduate of Stanford University and UC-Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law.

Kelly, 66, is western region managing partner for Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP with experience in insurance defense and complex commercial litgation. Kelly, who received the endorsement of the influential Los Angeles Breakfast Club, is a former president of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, former member of the Commission on Judicial Nominations Evaluation and former president of the Coalition for Justice. He also served on the board of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. Kelly received his law degree from Loyola Law School and his undergraduate degree from Pomona College.

Lyman, 66, is a solo practioner specializing in bankruptcy and family law. He also has served as a mediator for the San Diego Superior Court and as judge pro tem. He is past president of the San Diego County and Foothills bar associations. He received his law degree from California Western School of Law and his undergraduate degree from Ohio State University.

Founded in 1927 by the state legislature, the State Bar of California is an administrative arm of the California Supreme Court, serving the public and seeking to improve the justice system for more than 80 years. All lawyers practicing law in California must be members of the State Bar. By July 2009, membership reached more than 222,000.

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