James P. Gray: Hon. James P. Gray Orange County Superior Court –After graduating from UCLA, James P. Gray served as a Volunteer in the Peace Corps in the small town of Palmar Norte, Costa Rica teaching physical education and health from 1966 to 1968. Then after his graduation from law school from USC, served as a criminal defense attorney in the Navy at the USNaval Air Station in Guam and the Naval Air Station in Lemoore, California from 1972 to 1975.
After working as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and then in a private law firm in Newport Beach, Jim Gray was appointed as a judge of the Municipal Court in Santa Ana at the end of 1983, and then was elevated to the Superior Court bench in 1989. Judge Gray was a founder of the Orange County Peer Court program with the Constitutional Rights Foundation, which takes real juvenile court cases to local high schools to present to high school student jurors; an Inn of Court chapter, which has been named after his father, and which encourages ethics, camaraderie and excellence in the professional practice of law; and the Association of Former United States Attorneys.
He has also received numerous awards and distinctions for his community service, including being named Judge of the Year by the Business Litigation Section of the Orange County Bar Association, having the annual Judge of the Year Award named after him by the Orange County Chapter of the Constitutional Rights Foundation, the Judge of the Year Award by the Orange County Bar Foundation, and being the recipient of honorary Doctor of Laws degrees both from the Western State University College of Law, and the Chapman University College of Law.