An accurate and entertaining history of the Calaveras County (CA) Bar Association, its lawyers, judges, and cases This book creates a record which recaptures and preserves an era of jurisprudence that had its origins in the California Gold Rush. Chronicled here are some of the county's major dynasties and destinies, endowed by a culture of high-caste and outcast: freebooters and stray-shooters; claim jumpers and Bible thumpers; rogues, rascals, and roustabouts; spellbinders, stem-winders, and minders of the public weal...sometimes rising to nobility and heroism; other times descending to farce, folly, and low melodrama. Displayed herein are the many aspects of the human character.
Michael Arkin is a former Independent State Hearing Officer who heard and determined contested cases between school districts and parents as part of the Special Education Hearing Office in Sacramento, California. As an ISHO, his written Decisions were pubished in legal journals.
A former United States Department of Justice trial attorney in Washington, D.C., he engaged in the practice of law for 44 years before relocating to New Mexico to reflect and write. His law practice was balanced primarily among providing legal services as Chief Trial Counsel to Child Protective Services, additionally as special counsel to the Superior Court for children in high conflict child custody cases, and as counsel for battered women referred by the Women's Crisis Center in the County in which he resided.
Reared in Arlington, Virginia and a graduate of Wakefield High School, he received undergraduate degrees from The George Washington University and The University of Oklahoma with a major in psychology, and minors in sociology, philosophy and English. A man of varied interests, while at GWU he volunteered at the campaign headquarters of then US Senator Jack Kennedy in 1960. Returning to Oklahoma, he received his law degree from the University of Oklahoma where he served as Managing Editor and Articles and Book Review Editor of the Oklahoma Law Review. While living in Oklahoma, he helped former United States Senator,Fred Harris on the campaign trail. He has been an active supporter of political candidates throughout his adult lifetime. In addition, he is a classic car restorer, has bred and trained Beagle dogs for competition in Field Trials throughout the Southwest, and studies Native American history and art.
He is the author of From the Depth of the Mines Comes the Law, a regional history book, Out of Balance, a socially relevant mystery, and he is working on his second novel, tenatively titled, "Judicial Discretion."
