Ernest Hiroshige ’67

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A superior court judge since 1982, Judge Ernest Hiroshige is the recipient of the 2017 Public Service Award. This is his second UCLA Award, having received the Community Service Award in 1994. Judge Hiroshige was a founding officer and president emeritus of the Japanese American Bar Association of Los Angeles. He has served as president of the California Oriental Peace Officers Association and as board member of the Hastings College of Law Alumni Association, Center Theatre Group and Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics. As a lawyer, he served as an officer of the Minority Bar Associations of Los Angeles, receiving an award of merit for his efforts to increase the ethnic minority lawyers employed by the City and County of Los Angeles.

In 2016, Judge Hiroshige received the Award for Judicial Excellence from the Korean American Community Lawyers (KCLA), for accompanying the KCLA Delegation to South Korea to meet with judges and attorneys from South Korea in an exchange about comparative law in civil litigation.

A former child actor, the judge also chaired the Asian Pacific American Friends of the Theater, dedicated to the development of Asian Pacific American artists, actors, writers, directors and producers with the goal of helping to get underrepresented artists into the mainstream. He is the founding president of the Asian Pacific Alumni of UCLA and served on the UCLA Alumni Association Board of Directors from 1995-97. Judge Hiroshige graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in political science and received his J.D. from the Hastings College of Law.