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Derek. A. Westen ATTORNEY AT LAW 1800 JELINDA DRIVE SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA 93108 | derek@westenlaw.com |
Résumé
Derek Westen was born and raised in Santa Barbara, attending
Santa Barbara Junior and High Schools.
Mr. Westen received his B.A. degree from Pomona College in 1967, where he
graduated with honors. He was graduated from the University of California
Law School at Berkeley (Boalt Hall) in 1970 with a J.D. degree. He was awarded
the Order of the Coif, graduated with top honors, and was ranked fourth
in his class. He served as Note and comment Editor of the California Law
Review (1969), and as Chief Articles Editor (1970).
After earning his law degree, he served as Clerk to the
Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court (1970-71), and then returned
to California to work with California Rural Legal Assistance, a non-profit
organization devoted to providing assistance to the rural farmworker population
of California. During this period he performed extensive litigation in
both state and federal courts. In 1974 Mr. Westen returned to Santa Barbara
to join the firm of Schramm & Raddue, of which he was an Associate,
Partner and then Senior Partner for nineteen (19) years. Since the fall
of 1993 Mr. Westen has continued an independent practice.
Throughout his private practice, Mr. Westen has specialized
in general business law, real estate, land use, administrative, and water
law, including significant administrative litigation and arbitration and
mediation proceedings. His most extensive experience over recent years
has been in land use and administrative law, and has included representation
of a great variety of individual and large corporate land use clients.
He specializes in land use law and development, and general real estate
and business. He has over 35 years of experience in representing clients
in Santa Barbara County in land use development matters, real estate,
and general business matters. His client projects have included some of
the largest and most significant land use matters in Santa Barbara County.
Mr. Westen has been active in civic affairs. He currently
serves on the Board of Ensemble Theater Company of Santa Barbara and as
Chair of the “Ensemble at the New Vic” capital campaign; as
a Trustee of Pomona College; and as a member of the Directors Council
and Chair of the Friends of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics.
He was a former member of the Board and then President of the Legal Aid
Foundation of Santa Barbara County; President and former Chair of the
Concluding Phase of Building Healthy Communities campaign of Planned Parenthood
of Santa Barbara/Ventura/San Luis Obispo Counties; President and former
Chair of Development of the Board of The Foundation for Girsh Park; and
President of the Housing Foundation for Santa Barbara.
Mr. Westen is a devoted tennis player, a cyclist, and
a private pilot with over 35 years flying experience. He also enjoys reading,
science, history, backpacking, skiing, scuba diving and snorkeling.
Mr. Westen is married to Elizabeth (“Beth”) Westen, whom he met during their freshman year at Pomona College. Beth is an artist. They have three children, David, and twins Peter and Karen (“Kaz”). David is founder and President of Redshift Digital, Inc., a successful internet consulting company now based in San Francisco; he is married to Aynur Girgin. David and Aynur have homes both in San Francisco and Istanbul, Turkey. Peter lives in Mountain View, California. He is a software engineering manager at Apple Inc., where he oversees development of the iChat, FaceTime, and Photo Booth applications for the Mac. Kaz lives in San Francisco and is a project manager for Business Researchers, an analytics consulting firm.
December 2010