Hon. Cormac J. Carney, Class of 1977.
After graduating from St. Anthony College Prep in 1977 Cormac Carney attended the U.S. Air Force Academy for a year before transferring to UCLA. In his three years with the Bruins he led the football team in receiving each year while maintaining a 3.51 grade point average and earning a degree in psychology.
U.S. Distrcit Court Judge Cormac Carney St. Anthony Alum from the Class of 1977
While attending UCLA, he was an All-American wide receiver. He was an Academic All-American in 1981 and 1982, the first Bruin football player to win the honor twice, and was named one of the NCAA’s top eight student athletes for 1982-83. Cormac was also named to the All-Pacific-10 Conference teams the same years. He concluded his career as the Bruins' all-time leading receiver with over 100 receptions for nearly 2,000 yards. During his three years, UCLA was 26-7-2, climbed to as high as #5 in the national polls and beat Michigan in the 1983 Rose Bowl. In 2006 Cormac was inducted into the Academic All-America Hall of Fame.
After graduating from UCLA, Cormac played one season with the Memphis Showboats of the United States Football League and passed up San Francisco 49er overtures so he could attend Harvard Law School on an NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship.
Graduating from the Harvard Law School in 1987, Carney was an associate with Latham & Watkins for four years. He joined the Newport Beach office of O’Melveny & Meyers as a business litigator in 1991 and became a partner there in 1995. While his focus was on real estate, partnership, lender liability, environmental, intellectual property and insurance coverage disputes, devoted numerous hours to pro bono work for the disadvantaged. As a partner at O'Melveny, he supervised the firm's junior lawyers on pro bono cases, which included housing issues, education, civil rights, and the rights of homeless people.
He fulfilled an appointment by Gov. Gray Davis to the Orange County Superior Court in 2001 where he presided over both criminal and civil matters. President George Bush nominated Judge Carney for the U.S. District Court on October 15, 2002
After Carney’s nomination California Senator Diane Feinstein described Cormac this way:
Judge Carney is a bright, young judge with truly impressive credentials. Judge Carney graduated cum laude from UCLA, where he earned All-American honors as a wide receiver. He attended Harvard Law School, worked as a partner for the prestigious law firm of O'Melveny & Myers, and has served with distinction as a Los Angeles Superior Court judge. I am confident he will prove a valuable addition to the bench in the Southern District of California.
Judge Carney was confirmed by an 80-0 vote of the U.S. Senate as a U.S. District Justice in April 2003.
Carney now spends his days handling complex civil and criminal matters, including patents, copyrights, trademarks, securities, business finance, civil rights, drug conspiracies and white collar crime.
He and wife Mary Beth have three children, Thomas, John, and Clair.
Cormac was not the only athletically gifted member of the Carney clan – His father Padraig starred for a famous Gaelic football (which combines elements of rugby and soccer) side in Mayo, Ireland, in the 1950s and was inducted into the Gaelic Athletic Association Hall of Fame in 2001.
His brother Terence, Class of 1975, played baseball and football for the Saints. He took up basketball as a senior and earned a hoops scholarship to the University of the Pacific where he played from 1975 to 1979. Terrence’s daughter Katie was a four year started in soccer for El Toro High School and went on to play at UNLV where as a sophomore she scored the winning goal in overtime to give the Rebels their first ever Mountain West Conference Championship in 2005 and was named tournament MVP.
And his other brother Brian, Class of 1973, also played football for the Saints and went on to play at Air Force from 1974 to 1977. Brian’s son Jake played high school football in Kentucky at Lexington Catholic High School and went on to play defensive back for the Fighting Irish at Notre Dame.