Judge D. Zeke Zeidler was elected to the bench of the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2004. Prior to that, he served as a Superior Court Referee for over six years, presiding over cases that involved child abuse and neglect. Judge Zeidler currently serves on the Judicial Council of California’s Center for Judicial Education and Research Advisory Committee and the Family and Juvenile Law Advisory Committee, and previously served on the Advisory Committee on Providing Access and Fairness and on the State and Tribal Courts Forum. Judge Zeidler has chaired the committee that creates anti-bias and ethics curriculum for judicial officers and court staff throughout California, has taught new judge orientation (NJO) and the juvenile dependency primary assignment course for many years, and is chair of the NJO Curriculum Program Workgroup. He has also presented nationally on diversity, child welfare, and LGBT domestic violence issues. Judge Zeidler has served on the Board of the Juvenile Court Judges of California for many years, and most recently he was selected to serve on California Judges Association’s newly formed Task Force on the Elimination of Bias and Inequality in our Justice System.

Before taking the bench, Judge Zeidler was an attorney representing abused and neglected children and their parents. He was the one of the founding co-chairs of the National Lesbian and Gay Law Student Association (now the Law Student Division of the National LGBT Bar Association), has served as an officer in NLGLA (now the National LGBT Bar Association), and served three terms as President of the International Association of LGBTQ+ Judges. Since 2006, he and his husband, attorney Jay Kohorn, have hosted the Rand Schrader LGBT Law Student Reception, welcoming students from law schools throughout the greater Los Angeles area into their home. In addition to his legal involvements, Judge Zeidler has been very active on education issues. He was first elected to the Redondo Beach School Board in 1995, becoming only the tenth openly Gay or Lesbian school board member in the country, and he was overwhelmingly re-elected in 1999.