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Having grown up in the forests of Washington state’s
Olympic peninsula, Andrew Zepeda (class of 1979) made
a big leap geographically and culturally to attend Thomas
Aquinas College. Having now become a partner in Lurie
& Zepeda, a nine-attorney law firm in Beverly Hills,
Andy has made that leap all the more, well, Olympian.
Andy was an avid reader but became
tired of high school. "I loved politics and history.
Everything I thought was a classic I wanted to get my
hands on." One day his father gave him an advertisement
about the College. Intrigued by the ad, Andy sent for
the College’s founding document and became "totally
convinced" he should go nowhere else.
Andy had never visited the College
or even California, but he got on the plane to travel
to enter as a freshman. "My mother thought it was
absolutely crazy." She became reconciled to the
idea. All nine of her children have graduated from the
College.
It was the best move of his life. "My
College years were really happy years. I look back almost
with envy. The hours of study - almost every class -
were delightful. I never had any doubt this was the
right thing to do. To meet all those people of like
mind - interested, devoted to learning, to the Church
- was wonderful."
One of "those people" was
classmate Anita Grimm, the eighth in a family of 17
children. Andy and Anita, married in 1980, now have
11 of their own. Anita’s additional stupendous
accomplishment: She home-schools them.
Andy turned down several full-ride
fellowships in the history of science before entering
law school at Notre Dame. Charles Rice, then its dean,
was fond of saying: "Thomas Aquinas graduates are
the best - period, paragraph."
Andy was recruited to a 100-member
firm in Los Angeles. But six months later, the firm
broke up, and partner Bruce Lurie asked him to join
a new firm. In 1988, Andy became a partner there, and
in 1991 the name was changed to Lurie & Zepeda.
The firm has since expanded the name to Lurie, Zepeda,
Schmalz & Hogan. The firm specializes in complex
business, real estate, and corporate litigation.
Apart from his demanding schedule handling
commercial litigation, Andy has dedicated his talents
to prolife causes, such as the pro bono defense of many
defendants in the first Operation Rescue trials in Los
Angeles. Currently, he is lead counsel challenging the
constitutionality of the City of Monrovia’s daytime
curfew, which oppresses home-schooled families.
In 1989, he and other like-minded attorneys
founded the Life Legal Defense Foundation to protect
the rights of prolife demonstrators. That organization
has now grown to a network of several hundred attorneys
throughout the state and has won several important legal
challenges. Andy recently helped win a case striking
down as unconstitutional the City of Santa Barbara’s
attempt to limit sidewalk counseling at abortion clinics.
Mary Reilly, Life Legal’s administrative director,
says: "Andy is just awesome. His brain, his generosity,
his talent, are incredible. We need more attorneys like
him."
Andy also spreads his time over other
worthy pursuits. He serves as Scoutmaster for a troop
of home-schoolers, Treasurer of the Newman Club, and
lector at St. Therese Church in Alhambra. In 1996, he
was elected to the College’s Board of Governors.
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