Resume and Biography
1984 Bachelor of Science UC Davis in Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning, an applied political economy degree that also provided a foundation in the natural sciences.
1987: Juris Doctor UCLA School of Law
1987-1989 Law Clerk to the Hon. Albert Lee Stephens, Jr., United States District Court, Central District
1989-1990: Deputy District Attorney, Los Angeles County District Attorney
1990-2000: Deputy Public Defender, Los Angeles County Public Defender
2000-2004 Private Criminal Defense Practice in San Mateo County and Alameda County, DBA Law Office of Lloyd E. Handler in Redwood City. Member of the San Mateo County Private Defender Panel
2000 and 2004-present. Deputy Public Defender Los Angeles County. Grade 4 (senior trial lawyer qualified to handle capital cases) since 2008. Deputy-in-charge of the Public Integrity Assurance Section 2016-2018
State Bar Certified Specialist in Criminal Law since 2002
Lloyd grew up in China Lake and Ridgecrest California where his father was a research chemist and later an electronic warfare project manager at the Naval Weapons Center at China Lake. He was raised to be a scientist or engineer, but an interest in economics and political science led him to attend Princeton University where he intended to major in Political Economy. Lacking funds to stay at Princeton, he transferred to UC Davis. At Davis he chose to study Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning, which was essentially the study of the political economy of environmental issues. Although he was at first interested in working in a state or federal environmental agency, he became inspired to go to law school and become an environmental litigator when he took a class in environmental law that was taught by a lawyer from the State Attorney General’s Office. While at both Princeton and Davis, he was a DJ at the campus radio stations, and was the program director of KDVS his last year at Davis. While at Davis, he also managed a local rock band that went on to record extensively and tour internationally. He also took a quarter off from Davis to run the Tulare County Office of a candidate for Congress.
Lloyd became interested in criminal law in law school after completing a summer internship at the US EPA Office of Criminal Enforcement. After his federal judicial clerkship, he joined the District Attorney’s Office as he hoped to eventually work in the Environmental Crime Unit. At first he felt he would have no problem developing the trial skills needed for that unit through handling general criminal cases because several women he knew had been sexually assaulted and his own mother had been robbed at knife point in a restaurant parking lot. However, despite prosecuting 18 trials to verdict as a prosecutor in West Covina, the DA’s Office and he became disillusioned with each other. His boss wanted him to slavishly follow the DA Policy Manual and expected him to believe police officers without question, and Lloyd had trouble with both of those expectations. While working in West Covina, he was recruited by the head of the local Public Defender’s Office to apply to the Public Defender’s Office. In addition to having beaten him in trial, Lloyd had impressed him by his ability to understand the equities of cases and mitigation evidence in a way most of his prosecutor colleagues could not. While a prosecutor, he participated in a number of successful gang-related attempted murder prosecutions and obtained the conviction of a police officer for committing an off-duty assault with a deadly weapon.
Although he has found work on the defense side to be much more challenging than prosecuting, Lloyd has found it much more suited to his skill set. Lloyd worked in the juvenile Court in Compton before starting an adult felony practice there. In 2000 he moved to Oakland in order to marry and tried his hand at private practice. As a private lawyer he handled adult and juvenile cases throughout San Mateo and Alameda Counties, continuing to defend poor and working people through the San Mateo County Private Defender Program.
In 2004, Lloyd returned to Los Angeles with twin toddlers and rejoined the Public Defender’s Office. From 2016 to 2018, Lloyd was the deputy-in-charge of the Public Defender’s Public Integrity Assurance Section, the unit that archived and disseminated law enforcement misconduct information in order to help clients dispute charges brought based on the testimony of problematic officers and deputies. In that position he also coordinated the Office’ handling of petitions for resentencing brought on behalf of clients sentenced to 25-years to life under the Three Strikes Law. Four of his clients had Three Strikes sentences reduced, and two were ordered released immediately.
Lloyd enjoys day hikes locally and backpacking in the Sierras. He is still passionate about college radio and still likes to take in live rock and roots music, music that might be performed in either English or Spanish. He prefers small venues, where you might see him with a beer in his hand. He loves playing pickup basketball and has played in games organized by dads from his sons’ school, DAs, Sheriff’s Deputies, and a Judge, and has played at regular games at the Salvation Army in Compton and at juvenile halls in both Los Angeles and San Mateo. He admits to probably being unhealthily invested in Bruins basketball and the travails of both the Lakers and the Clippers. He enjoyed coaching his sons’ basketball teams before their skills exceeded his basketball IQ.
