Candidate for
California State Court of Appeal; District 2; Division 2

Justice Chavez is a native of Los Angeles. She is a graduate of St. Bernard High School, Playa del Rey. She received her Bachelor degree from the University of San Francisco in 1975. She was awarded her law degree from Loyola Law School in 1978.

After pracicing law for approximately ten years with the law firm of Pomerantz & Chavez, she was appointed to the Los Angeles Municipal Court by Gov George Deukmejian where she served for three years, handling misdemeanor trials, preliminary hearings, landlord tenant and other civil cases. In January, 1992 Chavez was elevated to the Los Angeles Superior Court by Gov Pete Wilson. Most of the 14 years she spent on that court were in the South Central District (Compton) where she primarily handled criminal matters, including numerous felony trials involving robbery, burglary, sexual assault and approximately one hundred murder trials. In October, 2005 she was nominated to the Court of Appeal by Gov Schwarzenegger. That appointment was confirmed on December 7, 2005 and she has spent the last year at work at the Court of Appeal.

Justice Chavez has been a member of the Judicial Council Committee on Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Courts, and a memeber of various bar associations, including, the Los Angeles County Bar, California Women Lawyers, Los Angeles Women Lawyers, Mexican American Bar Association and the Latina Lawyers Association during her career. She has been active in organizations addressing issues of crime prevention in the South Central District as well as actions encouraging the role of women in law enforcement.