3 more election profiles: Goorvitch, Sapp, Bermudez

The DJ presents 3 more appellate justice election profiles:

Goorvitch brings writs, criminal, regulatory experience to appellate bench -- Justice Stephen I. Goorvitch, seeking an eight-year term on the 2nd District Court of Appeal, brings experience deciding environmental writs, criminal cases and disputes over government regulatory authority.

A graduate of UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, Goorvitch began his career as a staff attorney in the Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Enforcement. He clerked for federal trial and appellate judges before joining O'Melveny & Myers LLP.

Newsom's legal chief, never a judge, seeks 12-year justice term -- David B. Sapp, Gov. Gavin Newsom's legal affairs secretary who helped lead California's National Guard lawsuit against President Donald Trump, seeks a 12-year 3rd District term despite never having been a judge.

As Gov. Gavin Newsom's legal affairs secretary, Sapp worked with the attorney general's office on every phase of Newsom v. Trump (2025), from gathering evidence and briefing to trial preparation and appeals, he wrote in his application for a seat on the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento. Sapp has never been a judge or argued in an appellate court and has tried four civil cases, all bench trials or writ proceedings.

Bermudez brings access-to-justice focus from Imperial County bench

Before becoming a judge, she spent about a decade representing school districts and public agencies, first as an associate at Best Best & Krieger LLP and then as a partner at Garcia Hernández Sawhney & Bermudez LLP, handling education, labor, employment and public agency matters. She worked for two years as a complaint resolution officer in UC San Diego's Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination. The youngest of five children of parents who immigrated from Mexico, Bermudez grew up in the Imperial Valley. She and her two older sisters all became lawyers. Nadia Bermudez, is now with Meyers Nave in San Diego. The eldest, federal Judge Ruth Bermudez Montenegro, administered her Superior Court oath in 2018.