Vincent S. Dalsimer; Former County, State Judge

Vincent S. Dalsimer, veteran judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court and the Los Angeles-based 2nd District state Court of Appeal, died Tuesday at the age of 78.

Dalsimer, who retired from the bench in 1985, died in Long Beach of congestive heart failure, said his son, attorney Dennis Dalsimer.

The longtime jurist was named to the trial court by the late Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown in 1961 and served for 20 years, primarily in the Norwalk branch of the vast countywide court. Gov. Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr. elevated Dalsimer to the Court of Appeal in 1981, where he served until his retirement four years later. Dalsimer also was on the executive board of the California Judges Assn.

Always interested in Democratic politics, Dalsimer was elected to the first City Council when Bellflower was incorporated as a city in 1956. He later opposed a fellow judge, Evelle J. Younger, for the post of Los Angeles County district attorney in 1964 but lost.

From 1959 until he took the bench in 1961, Dalsimer served as the first Gov. Brown’s director of the state Department of Professional and Vocational Standards.

A magna cum laude graduate of Southwestern Law School, Dalsimer also was a respected legal educator. He served in the 1960s as dean of the Orange County University College of Law, the first law school in Orange County, and was a founder of the Pepperdine University Law School.

At Pepperdine, Dalsimer was founding dean of the moot court competition that has been named in his honor.

Dalsimer is survived by his wife, Linda; three children, Dennis, Christopher and Stefanie Dalsimer; two stepchildren, Kurt Russler and Mason St. Peter, and 11 grandchildren.