Candidate for
City Attorney; City of Los Angeles

Jack was born at the UCLA Medical Center in 1964 and grew up in Los Angeles' Westside. From the beginning, public safety was in Jack's blood. His parents met while they were both working as federal prosecutors in Robert F. Kennedy's Justice Department, and they raised their kids Jack and Andrew with the belief that public service is a noble calling. While Jack later went into public service in Los Angeles, his younger brother, Andrew, served at the highest levels of the Clinton Administration's State Department and National Security Council as a Russia expert.

Jack attended Princeton University, where he majored in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and graduated with honors. More importantly, that's where he met his wife, Leslie. They were married in 1990. After a stint in Washington, D.C., where Jack worked on Capitol Hill and Leslie served as a policy analyst in the Pentagon, the couple came home to Los Angeles. Jack went back to school, studying law at UCLA where he became Editor-in-Chief of the law review, the school's highest honor.

After law school, Jack served as a clerk for United States District Judge Lourdes Baird and then joined the United States Attorney's Office in Los Angeles as a federal prosecutor, the same office where his parents had met thirty years before. Jack prosecuted violent and street crimes, worked in the Major Frauds Section, and later served in the Public Corruption and Government Fraud Section, where he brought complex white collar fraud, corruption, and civil rights cases. Jack prosecuted a federal law enforcement officer who masterminded a violent bank robbery conducted by local gang members; stock swindlers who cheated the public and violated federal securities regulations; a foreign aristocrat who kept her workers in conditions of virtual slavery; and the leader of an outlaw motorcycle gang for federal weapons crimes. He led the investigation of a California Superior Court Judge who pled guilty to federal corruption charges.

Jack was elected as City Councilmember for Los Angeles' Fifth District in June 2001 after running an aggressive door-to-door campaign. He was overwhelmingly reelected in March 2005.

As Chair of the City Council's Public Safety Committee, Jack has been the City's point person on expanding the LAPD by a thousand officers. He led the effort to get the police the DNA technology they need to catch and prosecute rapists. His 50-page 2002 report, "Preparing Los Angeles for Terrorism + A Ten-Point Plan," laid the groundwork for improved terrorism preparedness in Los Angeles and was among the most thorough assessments in the nation. Jack's work has improved the City's ability to respond to any kind of large-scale emergency or disaster including fires and earthquakes.

Meanwhile, Jack has been instrumental in cleaning up Santa Monica Bay and our local urban waterways - winning the Environmentalist of the Year Award from the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters for his fight to stop pollution of our City's water and beaches. Jack was named by our region's environmental leaders as the founding chair of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, and served as chair for four years.

Jack and Leslie are the proud parents of two teenagers. The family shares its house with an energetic mutt named Newton, whom they adopted from an animal shelter.