Hon. James Albracht
Education
After a distinguished high school baseball career, Judge Albracht attended UCLA, majoring in English, funded by a full grant-in-aid baseball scholarship. After college he attended UCLA School of Law securing his Juris Doctor degree in 1967.
Professional Experience
After passing the bar, Judge Albracht accepted an appointment as a deputy district attorney with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office. After practicing as a generalist prosecutor Judge Albracht was selected first to the special unit focusing on sexual assault prosecution, and then to the elite Special Investigations Division, investigating police officer-involved shootings, in-custody deaths, public corruption cases, and election code violations. His efforts yielded significant high profile convictions and prepared him well for the bench.
After fifteen years as a Deputy District Attorney, Judge Albracht was appointed directly to the Superior Court by Governor "Jerry" Brown in 1982. Initially assigned to a criminal calendar, Judge Albracht honed his dispositional skills resolving 98% of the cases processed. His unique and insightful people skills permitted his reaching early consensus with opposing parties and earned the respect of both bench and bar.
As a trial bench officer, Judge Albracht handled a diverse case load including such high profile cases as People v. Pittman [the shooter in the Billionaire Boy's Club case], People v. Menendez, etc., while managing a 2500 case criminal bench, Judge Albracht accepted the challenge of a civil and trial department. In focusing on trials and settlements, Judge Albracht's interpersonal skills, intelligence, sincerity, and personal ethics allowed him to resolve many of the cases that came before him.
As a civil bench officer for eleven years, Judge Albracht heard a wide variety of civil matters (in torts, contracts, family law, special proceeding eg. Condemnation). As his prominence and acumen became well known, the bar sought his help to resolve difficult civil cases and to decide complex bench trials. He developed a recognized expertise in real estate and medical malpractice cases. Recognized for his insight into and empathy for trial participants (jurors, witnesses, and parties), his fined-tuned pragmatic commonsense, incisive ability to simplify complex legal issues and translate them for the laymen, his extensive trial experience will serve him well in the alternative dispute resolution field.
This page was last modified in October 2009
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