The Supreme Court yesterday named Erin Rosenberg to lead the court’s Civil Central Staff.
Rosenberg, who will becoming the staff’s director on May 5, is replacing Lisa Walker. Walker became the first African American attorney to serve as a director for the California Supreme Court when she was appointed in 2018. (See here.) She has served the court for almost 30 years.
Merrill Balassone’s news release says “Rosenberg has been with the California Supreme Court for 10 years, serving first as a research attorney on Civil Central Staff and later as a chambers attorney for both Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero and former Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye.” While at the court, Rosenberg “helped launch a listserve that connects Supreme Court and appellate attorneys with pro bono volunteer opportunities that meet judicial guidelines.”
The Civil Central Staff is one of three central staffs at the court. The others are the Criminal Central Staff and the Capital Central Staff. The news release reports that the civil staff “assists the justices with civil petitions for review, petitions for writ of mandate, depublication and publication requests, and attorney disciplinary matters.”
Also, the court last month appointed Nisha Shah as the interim executive director of the California Habeas Corpus Resource Center. She had been serving as the Center’s deputy director of litigation since 2019. She replaces Michael Hersek.
The statutorily created Center represents — and recruits attorneys to represent — indigent persons sentenced to death in matters other than direct automatic appeals. That includes prosecuting state and federal habeas corpus proceedings, “challenging the legality of the judgment or sentence imposed against that person,” and preparing executive clemency petitions.
