THE BRONX — New Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark has started building out her staff, appointing her former principal law clerk and her old colleague as a criminal court judge to two key positions.
Former Criminal Court Judge Joseph J. Dawson will serve as Clark's counsel, while her former clerk Julian Bond O'Connor will serve as her deputy counsel and policy advisor.
Dawson graduated from St. John's University Law School in 1982 and served as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge William Nealon after graduation.
He became an assistant district attorney at the Manhattan DA's office in 1987, where he served as deputy chief of the organized crime narcotics unit and was eventually appointed as senior investigative counsel.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani appointed him as a criminal court judge in 1999, the same year he appointed Clark, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg reappointed him in 2009. He resigned from the bench in December.
"Judge Dawson and I became colleagues 16 years ago, having been sworn in just a month apart," Clark said. "The fact that he would leave the bench to become my counsel demonstrates his dedication to the criminal justice system. He's a brilliant lawyer."
O'Connor started off teaching middle school in Fort Greene before graduating from the University of Iowa Law School in 2002.
He began his law career as a staff attorney at the Bronx Defenders and was later appointed as a civil court attorney in Bronx County Civil Court.
O'Connor was appointed as Clark's principal law clerk in 2006, when she was a supreme court justice in The Bronx, and continued to clerk for her when she moved to the appellate division.
Clark officially began her tenure as Bronx District Attorney at the beginning of the year after a contentious nomination process, and her inauguration ceremony will take place at Lehman College on Jan. 16 at noon.
