Community and service was on the lips of every speaker at the Riverside County Bar Association’s Jan. 23 Installation Dinner.
Attorney Jim Heiting honored the late past RCBA President Dan Hantman and past RCBA Director Charlotte Butt for their service. The association awarded Riverside Superior Judge John Vineyard with a prominent service award. The dinner concluded with the installation of the RCBA’s new officers and president.
Dan Hantman
Hantman (Jan. 19, 1942-Feb. 14, 2024) served as the president in 2007, and served on the Board of Directors for nine years, Heiting said.
“Hantman was Mr. Omnipresent. He was always here, always there, wherever you were, he was. He gave everything to everybody. He gave of himself. He was a servant of humanity.” said Heiting.
Hantman joined the Peace Corps before he became a lawyer, and was deployed to Thailand. After his term ended, he stayed another six years, teaching English as a second language. He returned to California, where he graduated from the San Fernando Valley College of Law. He joined the Inland Counties Legal Services, a nonprofit that provides legal aid to low-income and disadvantaged residents of the Inland Empire. He specialized in Social Security, and volunteered at the Mission Inn Foundation, as docent choir and tour provider. He traveled with the Riverside mayor to Korea and India as an ambassador, Heiting said.
“His entire being was to help elders, and to help other people that were disadvantaged,” Heiting said.
Charlotte Butt
Butt (July 6, 1939-Dec. 9, 2024) spent over 30 years with the RCBA, starting in 1976 as a volunteer before becoming executive director in 1986. As director, she was integral to purchasing the RCBA’s building in the late 1990s, saving the association’s financial future, Heiting said.
“Charlotte always stepped up, and she put on the programs, the meetings, the celebrations, the dinners, the publications she was involved with, (lawyer referral services), and she did follow up work. She supported us in every way imaginable. One former president described her as, ‘she was moving, she was scurrying, she was always available.’ She was always moving quickly, and she loved her family deeply,” Heiting said.
“She had a great sense of humor, great sense of taste. She was fun. She brought light to my life. One person said she was kind, she was a safe haven, she was patient, she was beautiful inside and out. She was generous. She was a caregiver. She was a mentor, an iron hand and a velvet glove. She had a great talent. She was one of the best people I’ve ever known,” Heiting said.
John Vineyard
Riverside Superior Judge Craig Riemer presented Judge John Vineyard with the E. Aurora Hughes Meritorious Award for Service.
Vineyard, RCBA past president, served on so many committees that adding them all up would mean he gave 59 years’ worth of work, Riemer said. He was president in 1999, and led the association through its financial struggles. He guaranteed Riverside Superior Court’s commitment to the RCBA’s New Attorney Academy, edited the RCBA Bar Bulletin for seven years, and is an officer with the Leo A. Deegan Inn of Court.
“We all know people who sit on boards and whose primary contribution is that they keep the chair warm. They don’t do anything. John is not one of those people. John is a leader. He is a doer,” Riemer said.
When Vineyard received the Judicial Officer of the Year Award from the Barristers association in 2023, he gave a short speech.
“I promised I would not give a speech. So, thank you,” Vineyard said in 2023.
He was not given grace this time.
“I was told I can’t just say thank you and walk away,” Vineyard told the RCBA.
“It is an honor to receive the award dedicated to Aurora Hughes. I had the pleasure of working with Aurora. She was very dedicated to our bar association. So it is an honor to receive this award,” Vineyard said.
He thanked incoming RCBA President Mark Easter for nominating him, the partners, employers and colleagues he worked with. and his family. He also thanked attorney Lisa Yang, RCBA Executive Director Charlene Nelson and Butt for their work building the RCBA, and judges for mentoring him. He thanked Robert Lewis and Greg Rizio for creating the New Attorney Academy.
“(The Academy has) given me an opportunity to pay it forward a bit, share what I can with the newest members of our association, so I hope to continue doing that,” he said.
He praised the RCBA’s programs, starting with the Barristers program, for attorneys who have freshly joined the State Bar.
“Through Barristers, we all learned, as young, new lawyers, that we could be friends with our opposing counsel and still be effective lawyers. It’s hard to be a jerk when you have played softball with their toddlers, rode on a bus to Vegas with them, shared a dining room with each other,” Vineyard said.
President Mark Easter
Scott Ditfurth introduced Easter, RCBA president. Both attorneys work at Best Best & Krieger, and Ditfurth thanked Easter for inspiring him to be more involved in the legal community, to coach mock trial, and for fundraising for RCBA’s Christmas gift program.
Easter thanked everyone for their well wishes following his surgery, and thanked Heiting for creating The Other Bar, a bar association that helps lawyers and judges overcome alcoholism.
He said if anyone deserves an award, it was his daughter, who helped him through his recent health issues.
RCBA officers
The 2024-25 RCBA officers are as follows:
President Mark Easter
President-Elect Megan Demshki
Vice President Elisabeth Lord
Chief Financial Officer Goushia Farook
Secretary Lauren Vogt
Director-at-Large Erica Alfaro
Director-at-Large Alejandro Barraza
Director-at-Large Heather Green
Director-at-Large Malvina Ovanezova
Past President Lori Myers
The Barristers Officers are as follows:
President Summer DeVore
President-Elect Sharon Ramirez
Treasurer Kevin Collins
Secretary Nolan Kistler
Member-at-Large Henry Andriano
Member-at-Large Derek Diemer
Member-at-Large Ellen Peng
Member-at-Large Amanda Perez
Member-t-Large John Rafter
Past President David Rivera
