Candidate for
Judge-Superior Court; County of Los Angeles; Office 28

Qualifications

Arbitrator and Mediator

Elizabeth Moreno has been an arbitrator and hearing officer since 2002. She has presided over 200 arbitrations and hearings. Sitting as an arbitrator or hearing officer, the parties appear appear, with or without a lawyer, present evidence and witnesses and she makes detailed written decisions. As a hearing officer she decides whether a party has operated within the municipal law for the City of Long Beach and City of Santa Monica and within HUD and Housing Authority policies for Los Angeles County. Ms. Moreno arbitrates cases involving contract issues including health insurance charges, automobile lemon law, construction, employment, securities fraud and financial contract disputes. Since 1994, Ms. Moreno has served as a Small Claims Court judge pro tem most recently at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse.

As a mediator, Ms. Moreno conducts private mediations in court cases to assist the parties in resolving their disputes. She has handled cases in the areas which she has practices law in and gained expertise. As a private mediator she handles cases for State and Federal Courts and employment disputes involving the United States Forest Service and the United States Postal Service. Ms. Moreno has presided as a mediator in over 300 cases.

Criminal and Civil Trial Attorney

As a trial attorney, Ms. Moreno has tried an enormous number of cases. She has handled complex litigation, class actions, Real Estate, construction defects/Mold, discrimination, wrongful termination, employment contracts, wage and hour violations, personal injury, medical malpractice, conservatorships for developmentally disabled, insurance bad faith and business litigation. For five years she was an expert witness on Insurance Issues. Since 2004, she has had her own certified minority woman owned law firm of Elizabeth A. Moreno, A Professional Corporation. Prior to that she was in the private sector with civil litigation law firms of Anderson, McPharlin & Conners, Wolf & Leo, Rezak & Katofsky and Rezak & Moreno.

Ms. Moreno wants to make sure that criminals are prosecuted and serve their time. While working as a civil attorney in the private sector, she took an unpaid leave of absence and participated in the Los Angeles County Bar Association Trial Attorney Project and received extensive training prosecuting criminal cases. Once her training was completed, she spent time trying criminal cases for the Los Angeles City Attorney's office.

Active in Local and State Bar Associations

As a prolific writer regarding legal issues, elimination of bias and access to justice, Ms. Moreno's articles have been published in the Los Angeles Daily Journal, Beverly Hills Bar Association Newsletter, ABA Just Resolution Newsletter, Mediate.com, Advocate, Journal of Consumer Attorney Associations for Southern California and republished numerous times.

Ms. Moreno is serving a three year appointment to the California State Bar Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Committee and is the Chair for the Inclusivity Diversity subcommittee. The ADR committee identifies issues concerning the relationship of ADR to the practice of law, the administration of justice and improving access to justice. She is the chair of the Beverly Hills Bar Association Resolution Committee which solicits and authors resolutions recommending proposed changes to state substantive law and procedure. Ms. Moreno is also a member of the Hispanic National Bar Association and Mexican American Bar Association.

Ms. Moreno has been a speaker on elimination of bias issues to various associations including at the State Bar Annual Conferences from 2005 to 2009, California Association of Black Lawyers, Los Angeles Unified School District and the American Bar Association's Dispute Resolution Section Annual Conference. At the 2009 the Los Angeles County Bar Association's Solo and Small Practice Annual Conference she spoke to attorneys about assisting parties in representing themselves in court cases.

Education

As an undergraduate, Elizabeth Moreno attended California State University Fresno, earning a degree in History, cum laude. She graduated from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles earning a Juris Doctor. She also a certified mediator receiving her certificate in mediation of employment and labor disputes from Cornell University, New York and various advance certificates in Dispute Resolution from Straus Institute, Pepperdine Law School.