Our Orange County Bar Association (OCBA) has an important election coming up. We feature here the Secretary Candidates, Solange Ritchie and Thomas H. Bienert, Jr. “Secretary” is of particular importance, because in 2011 not only does the candidate who receives the most votes assume the position of Secretary of the OCBA, but immediately joins the Executive Committee. In 2012, the Secretary becomes Treasurer, the following year President-Elect, and then OCBA President in 2014 (and Past President in 2015). Please read their statements, research as you deem fit, and cast your ballot timely . . . for our future President.
The OCBA Board of Directors online election will open for voting from 9 a.m. on Friday, October 1, 2010 until 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October 26, 2010. Members without an email address will be sent a ballot by mail.
Thank you.
Solange E. Ritchie Solange Ritchie is a litigation attorney. Solange worked her way though law school, beginning her legal studies at De Paul University in Chicago and finishing as Editor-in-Chief of Western State’s law review.
Solange was born in Jamaica and immigrated to this country at age 12. Her commitment to community service grew out of personal experience. Her mother created an organization to serve the physically and mentally handicapped. It still exists. Her mother is her inspiration, as is her special brother, Andre.
Having lived in a third world country, Solange believes deeply in diversity and access to justice. She believes that our profession must respond by meeting the needs of all.
Her commitment to public service and “can do” spirit has always included meaningful service to the bar, via real work on innumerable committees. She has served on the OCBA’s Board of Directors from 2005 to 2007 and again from 2008 to the present.
In 2008, Solange was selected as one of the National Organization of Women Business Owners Remarkable Women of the Year. In 2009, she was honored as our Orange County Women Lawyers Association “Attorney of the Year”—an honor given to just one female attorney in Orange County each year.
While writing articles for Plaintiff, The Gavel, The Advocate, and the Western State Law Review, Solange finds time to speak to attorneys and law students on many issues, including the challenges of balancing a successful legal career. Solange and her husband, Steve Young, make their home in Newport Beach, along with two great canine friends.
The OCBA must offer its younger members a place to learn. Solange will expand the OCBA’s mentoring program . . . and inclusion for all. Solange will ensure the OCBA will continue to be a shining example of all that is noble in this, our chosen profession.
Thomas H. Bienert, Jr. Tom Bienert practices at Bienert, Miller & Katzman in San Clemente. Before founding the firm, Tom was the chief federal prosecutor in Orange County, an Associate Independent Counsel in Washington, D.C., and a litigator at Irell & Manella in Newport Beach.
A highly experienced practitioner, Tom has been recognized in many “Best Of” publications. His trial victories include scores of criminal convictions as a federal prosecutor, jury acquittals as a criminal defense attorney, multimillion-dollar verdicts as plaintiff’s counsel, and come-from-behind defense judgments in civil cases. Many of Tom’s matters have received national attention, including the investigation of President Clinton, the Orange County bankruptcy, the UCI fertility clinic scandal, the beating of Reginald Denny during the 1992 L.A. riots, the Milberg Weiss criminal fraud case, and the KPMG tax conspiracy cases in New York.
In his wide-ranging career—spent in settings as diverse as prosecutors’ offices, a several-hundred-lawyer firm, a solo practice, and most recently the nine-lawyer firm he built from the ground up—Tom has acquired practical, real-world insights into the challenges faced by lawyers at every level of the profession. He has served as an attorney delegate to the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference and as a director of the Orange County Federal Bar Association and Orange County Constitutional Rights Foundation, and currently serves on the OCBA Board and Judiciary Committee.
As OCBA Secretary, Tom will help members acquire practical tools to build their practices and provide a higher level of service to clients. He will work to expand attorney mentoring and legal education, and to establish new, user-friendly programs to pair up attorneys seeking particular expertise with attorneys offering that expertise. Tom will continue efforts to provide representation to the poor and to expand networking opportunities for lawyers that will foster a sense of community and mutual learning while assisting the community at large.