[Kate Moser]
San Francisco Superior Court is sticking with familiar territory with its new chief executive, whose name was announced today.
The bench voted unanimously Tuesday to select two-year veteran CFO Michael Yuen after a national search conducted this summer. On Sept. 3, Yuen will replace interim CEO Claire Williams, an attorney with the court who took the reins from longtime CEO Gordon Park-Li last February.
“My vision is to continue to look at ways where we can reengineer the court to the point where we can continue to maintain our existing service levels – possibly even add on to our service levels – with reduced resources from the state,” Yuen said in an interview.
Recent examples of finding ways to be more efficient and reallocate resources, he said, include the fact that the court – starting this week – has merged two discovery calendars into its two law and motion calendars. It has also implemented e-filing in child support cases.
Given the challenges ahead, Yuen said he was grateful for the bench’s unanimous support.
“Let’s face it,” he said. “Anything that we do is going to have to require the support of the bench and the support of the staff. It helps to start out on the right foot to know that the support of the bench is there.”
He added that he’d heard nothing but nice things from court staff today, including a flurry of at least 50 e-mails.
“It’s reassuring, and it gives me the confidence going into the job that hopefully I made the right decision and hopefully I can help move the court toward where we want to be,” he said.
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