Wright, Daniel K.

Joseph A. Woods, Jr. is of counsel to the firm. He has practiced law with Donahue, Gallagher, Woods & Wood, LLP and predecessor firms since 1950, being responsible for a wide variety of litigation, real estate, business and corporate matters for various clients. From 1956 to 1988, Mr. Woods was the attorney principally responsible for the legal affairs of Lucky Stores, Inc. During that time Lucky Stores grew from a Central California grocery chain with annual sales of approximately $45 million into a diversified nationwide retailing enterprise with annual sales in excess of $9 billion. From 1970 to 1988, Mr. Woods was a member of the Board of Directors of Lucky Stores. During his tenure, he participated in a corporate restructuring that thwarted a hostile takeover attempt and, later, in the negotiated acquisition of the chain by Salt Lake City-based American Stores Company.

In 1974, Mr. Woods took a four-month leave of absence from the firm to serve as a Senior Associate Special Counsel to the House of Representatives' Committee on the Judiciary in its inquiry respecting the possible impeachment of Richard Nixon. Mr. Woods headed the Constitutional and Legal Section of the Inquiry Staff, with responsibility for conceptual and procedural aspects of the matter under investigation.

Since 1983 Mr. Woods has been a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, an honorary organization dedicated to the empirical study of law, legal institutions and legal process in society. He served as California co-Chair of the Fellows from 1989 to 1995, when he was elected Secretary of the Fellows and became a member of the Foundation's Board of Directors. In February 1996 he became Vice-Chair of the Fellows, and in January 1997, the Chair.

Mr. Woods is a member of the State Bar of California and American Bar Association (Sections on Litigation; Antitrust Law; Corporation, Banking and Business Law; Torts and Insurance Practice). He represented Alameda County in the ABA's House of Delegates from 1982 to 1990, serving on the Litigation Section Liaison Committee from 1986 to 1990. Locally, he is active in the Alameda County Bar Association (President, 1975; Vice President, 1974; Director, 1973-76 and 1970-71), and headed its Committee on the Media and the Judiciary from 1982 to 1997. He helped to develop the Alameda County Bar Foundation, which funded the Volunteer Legal Services Corporation's efforts to organize Bar members' pro bono activities, serving as its President in 1991 and as a Board member from 1991 to 1993. He is an Elder of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and has been active in numerous civic organizations, including Council for Social Planning (Oakland), Mayor's Committee on Full Opportunity in Housing (Oakland), Family Service Bureau of Alameda County, Boy Scouts of America, Camp Fire, and Ombudsman, Inc.

Mr. Woods received his undergraduate degree from the University of California in Berkeley in 1947 (Phi Beta Kappa, Order of the Golden Bear) and his law degree from Boalt Hall in 1949 (Order of the Coif, Note Editor of the California Law Review). His undergraduate studies at U.C. Berkeley were interrupted during World War II, when he received a commission as a naval officer and was assigned to duty afloat in the Pacific.