Judge Yolanda Orozco received her B.A. with highest honors from the University of California, San Diego in 1976 and her J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1979. After passing the California bar in 1979, she became a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Dvision until 1981 when she became a deputy federal public defender. She then entered private practice in 1985 joining Overland, Berke, Wesley, Gits, Randolph and Levanas before moving to Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Heine, Underberg, Manley, Myerson, and Case in 1986. She then worked for O’Neill, Lysaght and Sun starting in 1988, where she became a partner in 1990. Thereafter, she joined Liner, Grode, Stein, Yankelevitz, Sunshine, Regenstreif and Taylor in 2004 and Jones Day in 2005, where she remained until 2010 when she was appointed to the bench by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. She was an officer and member of the board of directors of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, on the Standing Committee on Attorney Discipline for the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, a lawyer delegate to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference, member of the U.S. Magistrate Merit Selection Panel, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Gender Bias Project, the Federal Indigent Defense Panel, deputy general counsel to the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department (the Christopher Commission) to investigate the Rodney King incident, board member of the Western Center on Law and Poverty and Public Advocates, Inc., and co-chair of the Diversity Committee in the Los Angeles Office of Jones Day. She was also a member of the Federal Bar Association, Los Angeles County Bar Association, American Bar Association, and the Mexican-American and National Hispanic Bar Association. She speaks Spanish, owns a home in the south of France, and is a democrat.
Awards
Special Commendation for outstanding work performance – U.S. Department of Justice
Links
Los Angeles Superior Court – Courtroom Rules
The Robing Room – Hon. Yolanda Orozco
Judges Speak About Diversity on the Bench – USC Gould School of Law
Orozco Says Her Retirement From Superior Court Means No More Working – Metropolitan News-Enterprise
Schwarzenegger Names 19 to Superior Courts, 11 in Los Angeles – Metropolitan News-Enterprise