Reuben Ortega 6130

Reuben Ortega is a retired Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal, Division One, Second Appellate District. He was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1941, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He lived in a small house with his mother and grandparents that did not have indoor plumbing. He attended Valley High School in Albuquerque and then the University of New Mexico. After graduating, he and his wife moved to Washington, DC where he worked for the National Labor Relations Board and then the Veterans Administration while attending Georgetown Law School at night. In 1967, he accepted a job as a senior law clerk in the Los Angeles District Attorney's office and passed the bar in December of that year. He spent six years in the DA's office, prosecuting deadbeat fathers and trying cases in municipal court. In 1973, he left the DA's office and went into private practice.