The Journey
The Man With a Heart.
The Candidate With a Soul.
Michael J. Malak’s path to the bench is anything but ordinary. Educated at Loyola Marymount with a B.A., M.A., and J.D., he began his career not in a corner office but in a seminary, where he was taught to be all things to all people — to be ready for anything, to live with nothing, and to fight for those who could not fight for themselves.
That calling led him from Hollywood to the courtroom. As Director of Marketing for Daily Variety, he quintupled the publication’s revenues in five years and managed the Oscar campaigns for Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest — two of the most celebrated films in cinema history. He received the Key to the City of San Diego and a California Senate Resolution of Commendation. He served as a State Commissioner for Motion Pictures and for Business Insurance. As a civilian contractor for the Department of Defense, he filmed flight test verifications of carrier-based anti-submarine warfare aircraft over the Pacific.
But it was his work with those the system forgot — the mentally ill, the addicted, single mothers with small children cast aside — that defines who Mike Malak truly is.
For decades, he has represented the people nobody else would take on. Not for money — most could never pay. Public defenders didn’t want them. Judges disliked them. Prosecutors ignored them. Mike showed up anyway. He put them through diversion programs, fought for their dignity, and held the system accountable when it failed them.
Now he seeks the bench — not for prestige, but to bring that same relentless advocacy into the heart of a court system desperately in need of reform. He is admitted to the State Bar of California and practices before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the California Central and Northern District Courts.
