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The Hon. William P. Hogoboom to Receive Honorary Degree From Oxy

Hogoboom, who also served as vice president and chief counsel at the University of Southern California, will be presented with an honorary doctor of laws degree at the 10 a.m. ceremony in the Remsen Bird Hillside Theater on the Occidental campus.

Also receiving a honorary doctor of laws degree will be Henry Cisneros, president of Univision Communications and former secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Cisneros will be the ceremony’s featured speaker.

A 1939 graduate of Occidental and a veteran of World War II, Hogoboom has enjoyed a long and distinguished career as an attorney and judge, most notably in the field of family law. An attorney in private practice for 20 years, he was elevated to the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 1968 by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan.

During his 15 years in the judiciary, Hogoboom served as presiding judge of the Los Angeles County Family Law Court and as presiding judge of the Juvenile Court. In 1977, he was named presiding judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, which is believed to handle the largest caseload in the country. He also served as a justice pro tem in the California Court of Appeal.

After stepping down from the bench in 1983, he was named vice president and general counsel at USC, where he received his law degree. Since his retirement in 1988, he has continued to serve as an arbitrator, mediator, court-appointed trustee and special master in a wide variety of cases in state and federal court.

Honored by the California PTA and the Los Angeles YMCA for his work with young people, Hogoboom is a former president of the Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF), the California Children’s Lobby (CCL), and the Los Angeles Rotary Club. He currently sits on the boards of the CRF, the CCL, the Western Justice Center, the Wellness Community-Foothills and the Buhai Center for Family Law.