DIVERSITY OF JUDGES TOPIC OF SUMMIT TODAY.

Byline: DENISE NIX  Staff Writer

The number of Asian and black judges on the Los Angeles Superior Court bench reflects the community, but the Latino population is under-represented, according to a report being released today.

The analysis will be discussed at a Los Angeles summit by judges, law school deans, bar association leaders and the judicial appointment secretaries of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Gov. Gray Davis.

The analysis found that more than 25 percent of Los Angeles County judges are minorities -- second only to Alameda County.

Latinos comprise more than 44 percent of the county's 10 million residents, but Latino judges make up just 10 percent of the bench, the report said.

``I think that the demographic of the Latino community has grown so quickly over the last two decades that it's been difficult for the legal community to keep up,'' said Judge Peter Espinoza, who helped compile the analysis.

The report found that 8 percent of the judges are Asian, compared with 13 percent of county residents, and about 9 percent of judges are black, compared with 10 percent of the overall population.

Espinoza suggested that one way to increase the number of Latino judges is to encourage students at a younger age to pursue higher education and law school.

``It's difficult for us to achieve parity on the court and it may be an unrealistic goal to try to reach parity with the Latino community because the applicant pool does not match,'' Espinoza said.

Inglewood Judge John Meigs said a major goal of today's summit is to persuade law schools, lawyers groups and legal firms to encourage minorities to aspire to the bench and then prepare them to become jurists.

``As a former president of an ethnic minority bar association, I had difficulty getting members of my bar to apply (for judgeships) because they felt it was not going to be successful, so why even bother,'' said Meigs, who formerly headed the John M. Langston Bar Association, a group of primarily black lawyers.

Meigs said he is particularly concerned about the number of black judges because many are retiring and not being replaced by others. ``We need to make people understand that there is value to diversity,'' Meigs added.

Torrance Judge Laura Ellison said she was pleased to see that the analysis showed an already diverse bench -- including women, who make up nearly 30 percent of the judges. ``There's always more that can be done,'' she added.

denise.nix(at)dailybreeze.com

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