LA County DA Steve Cooley Delivers College of Law Commencement Address
University of La Verne College of Law graduates received a special treat May 17 when Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley delivered the keynote address during Spring Commencement 2009.
With 77 graduates and their invited guests looking on, Cooley, who was elected to head the nation’s largest prosecutorial agency in 2000 and was the first LA County district attorney in 70 years re-elected to a third consecutive term, also received an honorary degree. The ceremony was held in the Sports Science & Athletics Pavilion on the main La Verne campus.
Cooley’s invitation to address graduates was a fitting one. During his tenure with the agency, the career prosecutor and son of an FBI agent has overseen reorganization of the office, which has more than 1,000 prosecutors, 300 investigators and 800 support staff, while successfully prosecuting several high-profile cases. Included are the recent second-degree murder conviction of famed music producer Phil Specter and the plea bargain of former Symbionese Liberation Army member Kathleen Ann Soliah, known as Sara Jane Olson. Olson pled guilty to two counts of possessing explosives with intent to murder stemming from her SLA activities in the 1970s.
Cooley, whose office prosecutes some 60,000 felonies and 200,000 misdemeanors each year, could not have chosen a more appropriate Southern California venue for his commencement address. The University of La Verne College of Law is the Inland Empire’s only law school approved by the American Bar Association and has surged in both prominence and popularity in recent years. Located in a 65,000-square-foot facility on its seven-acre campus in downtown Ontario, the University of La Verne College of Law serves more than four million people in San Bernardino and Riverside counties and an additional 2.2 million people in the San Gabriel Valley and Eastern Los Angeles County.
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