Letter from the Public Law Section Chair

• Publication year: 2022
• Author: Written by Christine Wood Chair

LETTER FROM THE PUBLIC LAW SECTION CHAIR

Written by Christine Wood Chair

It is with equal measures of sadness and pride that I inform you that the Public Law Section will miss its magnanimous chair, Alexander Calero, who was appointed to the bench of the San Diego County Superior Court in May 2022.

Judge Calero earned his law degree from the University of San Diego School of Law and worked as Senior Counsel at the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation for 17 years. More to the point, Judge Calero has served the California Lawyers Association tirelessly for more than 10 years—first in the former California Young Lawyers Association (now the New Lawyers Section) and then in the Public Law Section for seven years. I began working with Judge Calero more closely when he became Chair in 2019. He was such a gracious task master. All of us absolutely loved working with Judge Calero.

Congratulations, friend! We will miss you dearly, but love knowing that you are serving our community still—just now in a black robe!

The following are other updates for the Public Law Section, including items that Judge Calero, while he was still the Chair, had intended to cover.

Where we devote our time speaks volumes about the kind of organization we are as the Public Law Section. Over the last few years, we have spent a significant amount of time hosting informational panels for law student regarding careers in public law.

These panels provide law students with the opportunity to hear from public law practitioners about their career paths, practice areas, achievements, and challenges as public lawyers. The end goal of these panels is to encourage the next generation of lawyers to pursue a career in public law.

In 2012, then-Executive Committee member John Appelbaum, an attorney with the California Department of Justice, hosted our first careers in public law panel. Since that time, the Public Law Section has organized many panels for law students throughout California. These

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panels are a labor of love for many of our members. Executive Committee members use their professional networks to assemble panelists that represent the rich spectrum of public law attorneys and practice areas in our state. Public Law Section members then partner with local law schools, sometimes multiple schools, to coordinate the marketing and logistics for a panel presentation. For example, in 2020, the Public Law Section helped coordinate a panel with two San Diego-based law schools...