A news release from the Supreme Court announces a new leader of one of the court’s three central staffs of attorneys: “The California Supreme Court has 
named Lisa Ferguson Walker as the new director of its 15-member Civil Central Staff, effective October 1, 2018. Walker replaces Emily Graham, the director for the past ten years, who recently retired after serving the court for 29 years. Walker is the first African American attorney to serve as a director for the California Supreme Court.”
Walker is a Berkeley law graduate and a 22-year veteran of the civil central staff.
The civil central staff “prepare[s] memoranda on petitions for review and related civil matters and State Bar filings. The justices rely on the staff to help select the civil matters in which they grant review for written opinions.” (See here.) A separate criminal central staff does similar work on “petitions for review and habeas corpus petitions in all criminal matters except capital cases.” There’s also a capital central staff that “assists the justices in the adjudication of death matters, preparing memoranda and draft opinions addressing capital appeals, habeas corpus petitions, and related motions.”
