Profile: Marvin Mizell first African American male president of San Diego Cty Bar Association

Marvin E. Mizell

Marvin E. Mizell was elected President-Elect of the 10,000 member San Diego County Bar Association (SDCBA) in November 2010 after serving on the SDCBA’s Board of Directors for 3 years. When Mizell becomes President in December 2011, he will be the second African American, and the first African American male, to hold that position since the SDCBA was founded in 1899.

Marvin Mizell is a deputy attorney general in the California Attorney General’s Office, serving as a state prosecutor. In his nearly 13 years in his position, he has handled hundreds of felony convictions on appeal in state court and on habeas corpus in federal court, including successful briefs and arguments in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the California Supreme Court. He has had many of his cases published and has felony trial experience.

Mizell’s extensive legal community and community service experience includes serving in many roles with the Earl B. Gilliam Bar Association (EBGBA), including serving as President of the EBGBA in 2002. In that position, he wrote a resolution against Proposition 54, the Racial Privacy Initiative, which was adopted by many legal organizations in San Diego and throughout the state, including the San Diego County Bar Association. For his efforts against Proposition 54, which also included many written articles and appearances against the initiative, he received the EBGBA’s Frederick Douglass Community Service Award in 2003.

In addition, Marvin Mizell served as Chair of the SDCBA’s Ethnic Relations and Diversity Committee in 2007. In that capacity, he helped to write the SDCBA’s Diversity Pledge, which encouraged legal employers and entities to sign a pledge to implement relevant goals and practices to improve and retain diversity. Over 40 legal employers and entities have signed the pledge.

Mizell is a long-time member and active supporter of the Lawyer’s Club of San Diego, Pan Asian Lawyers of San Diego and La Raza Lawyers of San Diego. He has also served as a member of the SDCBA’s Children at Risk Committee, as an attorney scorer for a high school mock trial program run by the SDCBA and the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, and as a prosecution mentor for San Diego Teen Court. He has also participated with his fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., to help African American males succeed in two high schools in San Diego.

Mizell, 41, is a San Diego native. He has been married to his wife Lucy for 13 years.