Kathleen Diesman,  JD, MEd

Deputy District Attorney, County of Los Angeles

Kathleen has been a Deputy District Attorney with Los Angeles County since 1990.  Before that, she was in private practice in civil litigation and medical malpractice defense after graduation from DePaul University College of Law in 1983.   Prior to her career in law, Kathleen was a special education teacher.

As a criminal prosecutor with the Los Angeles District Attorneys Office, Kathleen specialized in the vertical prosecution of child abuse cases.  For several years, she was stationed at the Harbor-UCLA Child Crisis Center, where she was an integral part of an active multidisciplinary team.  In addition to prosecuting child sexual abuse, physical abuse and homicide cases, Kathleen also was in the Sexually Violent Predator Unit seeking civil commitment of convicted sex offenders who have a diagnosed mental disorder and who remain a danger to society after serving a prison sentence on the underlying offenses.

 Since 1992, Kathleen has been involved in CAPSAC, the California Professional Society on the Abuse of Children as a member and officer on the local and state board levels.  Through her association with CAPSAC, and APSAC, she has conducted numerous multidisciplinary training in child abuse at local, state and national levels.  Kathleen was also involved in various child abuse committees, including the establishment of the U.S. Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Child Pornography Task Force and the Los Angeles County Child Death Review Team coordinated by ICAN, the Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect.