THOMAS A. SAENZ, COUNSEL TO LOS ANGELES MAYOR, NAMED MALDEF PRESIDENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL

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July 14, 2009

THOMAS A. SAENZ, COUNSEL TO LOS ANGELES MAYOR, NAMED MALDEF PRESIDENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL: Civil rights veteran brings wealth of legal experience to nation's leading Latino civil rights organization

Because of his work on behalf of immigrants and day laborers, Tom Saenz lost out in his bid to become head of the Civil Rights Division of thr U.S. Department of Justice.  well, the story may have a happy ending.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) today announced that Saenz, currently Counsel to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, will be its new President and General Counsel. Saenz will join MALDEF in mid-August.

Since August 2005, Saenz has served as Counsel to Mayor Villaraigosa and as a member of the Mayor's four-person Executive team. Saenz has helped to lead the Mayor's legislative effort to change the governance of Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) in order to secure a quality education for all students in Los Angeles and has recently served as the Mayor's lead liaison on labor negotiations as the City strives in partnership with workers to address its serious financial situation.

Saenz had previously served as MALDEF's lead counsel for 12 years. During that time he successfully challenged California's unconstitutional Proposition 187 and led numerous civil rights cases in the areas of immigrants' rights, education, employment, and voting rights. Saenz achieved several victories against ordinances unlawfully restricting the rights of day laborers, served as lead counsel in the 2001 challenge to California's congressional redistricting, and initiated the employment discrimination lawsuit resulting in a $50 million settlement with Abercrombie and Fitch. Saenz was also the lead drafter of the Amicus brief on behalf of Latino organizations supporting affirmative action in the Supreme Court case, Grutter v. Bollinger.

Saenz clerked at both the federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after graduating summa cum laude from Yale University and receiving his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School. 

At the beginning of August 2005, Thomas A. Saenz became Counsel to the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles, where he serves as a member of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's executive team and provides legal and policy advice to the mayor. Previously, Saenz practiced civil rights litigation at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), a national organization dedicated to securing and promoting the civil rights of Latinos in the United States, where he served as Vice President of Litigation. As Vice President, Saenz oversaw MALDEF's efforts nationwide to pursue civil rights litigation in the areas of education, employment, political access, immigrants' rights, and public resource equity. Saenz was born and raised in southern California. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale University, and he received his law degree from Yale Law School. Saenz then served as a law clerk to the Honorable Harry L. Hupp of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, and to the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Saenz joined MALDEF as a staff attorney in 1993; he became Los Angeles Regional Counsel in 1996, National Senior Counsel in 2000, and Vice President of Litigation in 2001. At MALDEF, Saenz served as lead counsel in numerous civil rights cases, involving such issues as educational equity, employment discrimination, immigrants' rights, day laborer rights, and voting rights. For example, he served as MALDEF's lead counsel in successfully challenging California's Proposition 187 in court; as such, he presented extensive written and oral arguments on numerous occasions in three different cases involving the anti-immigrant initiative. He was also MALDEF's lead counsel in two court challenges to Proposition 227, the English-only education initiative that voters enacted in 1998, and he successfully challenged several ordinances barring day laborers from soliciting employment.

Saenz also served as MALDEF's lead counsel in challenging California's congressional redistricting in 2001.

KJ

July 14, 2009 | Permalink

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I wish him well and success for a long time to come!
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