Edhat StaffSource: Santa Barbara County Superior Court
Governor Brown has appointed Von T. Nguyen Deroian, 43, of Santa Barbara to a judgeship in the Santa Barbara County Superior Court. Nguyen Deroian has served as a commissioner with the Santa Barbara County Superior Court since 2017. Prior to that she served as a deputy district attorney at the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office from 2006 to 2017. She has also taught as an adjunct professor at the Santa Barbara College of Law since 2013. She earned her Juris Doctor degree from the Santa Barbara College of Law and an Associate of Arts degree from Allan Hancock College.
Presiding Judge Patricia Kelly stated, “Judge Deroian is a welcome addition to our bench. She is eminently qualified and possesses all of the qualities that will make her an extremely successful judge. She will serve this community with great dignity.”
11 years of experience.
There’s a santa Barbara college of law?
I’m not a lawyer and don’t know much about that school, but then she must be exceptionally gifted if she passed the bar anway…..correct?
Well, no matter where she went to law school, she passed the bar on the 1st try, about 40-50 percent taking the test do that. Fun to gripe when you know nothing about it.
America remains the land of opportunity: two year degree at low-cost Alan Hancock and four years of night law school. She boot -trapped herself into a very desirable position. Now she can afford to live in Santa Barbara. She tells you how to improve your skill set taking advantage of what is already on the table.
Yes, Jerusha, there is. And it’s a well-respected school of law in the area. For those of you sticking your noses up at it, where did you go to law school?
2 year college grad? A “suspect degree?” Did you not read the article?
Yes, the land of opportunity. If, like her, after you arrive to a new country on a boat and are placed into a detention/placement camp you do the following: Become a citizen, work multiple jobs while raising two children as a single mom, attend a law school at night (because you work two jobs during the day) that prepares you to pass the California bar (which the Harvard graduates need to pass also), pass the bar on the first attempt, get a job in the DDA’s Office and rise to the level of Senior DDA, fight for SB victims of crime to include the first successful Human Trafficking prosecution in Santa Barbara history.
I know her and I could go on, but instead I will just say, yes a 2-year degree. But, I wish my life story was near to being that good. Don’t Hate, Celebrate.
So happy for the citizens of SB.
What did I miss in the article? Hancock and SBCL. You won’t find these places listed in the top of academia for sure. What the point I am trying to make is that judicial officers should be our best and brightest. Unfortunately they are increasingly being filled by functionaries and mid level talent. This is for many reasons including: Salary is ridiculously low. Caseloads are ridiculously high. So let’s go back to appointing older lawyers who want to give public service at the end of their career and are comfortable doing the work for the good of the community and as a contribution back to the law.
Well respected by those who make a living promising naive folks that they can become lawyers here. Check out the bar pass rate. Check out the incoming academic qualifications of the students. Check out the sloppy faculty. The study of law is difficult, it is not a mechanical kind of thing. SBCL has no interest and no time for the philosophy and purpose of the law in society. Most of its student never graduate, most never past the bar. The ones that do would have been hugely better served by going out of town to a real law school where they could mingle with real law students and be taught by a real law faculty.