Biography   Ruben was born in Modesto, and with the exception of two years studying in South America, was educated through high school in the Modesto City School system.  Ruben is the son, grandson, brother, cousin, and nephew of public school teachers.  His family has been involved in Modesto City Schools as students, teachers, and parents for more than 50 years.  He did his undergraduate work at UC Berkeley, where he also taught three seminars. During his senior year, he co-authored a textbook that was published by Routledge Press in 1995, and is still used in college-level poetry classes. While at Berkeley, Ruben was also a junior high tutor in the Break the Cycle program.     After college, Ruben worked with the Bay Area Youth Agency Consortium Americorps program in their charter year. He supervised a corps of teachers, health workers and mentors in the San Francisco Bay Area, and taught a weekly seminar for the corps.  As a supervisor for a nonprofit organization in a time when both government and private grants were diminishing, Ruben learned how to make the best use of every dollar entrusted to the organization.     Ruben received his legal education at the UC Davis, Martin Luther King, Jr. School of Law, where he earned the American Jurisprudence award for the highest grade in the Business Law class.  He also received the Judge Lorenzo Patiño Award for service to the community.  Fulfilling the desires of his late great-grandfather in Panama, Ruben graduated with a Juris Doctor degree in 1998, becoming the first lawyer in his family.     For four years, Ruben worked as a public defender, in State and Federal courts in California, Nevada, and Washington. In that capacity, he wrote legal briefs submitted to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the California Supreme Court, and the United States Supreme Court. He also served as coordinator of Continuing Legal Education.     In 2002, Ruben co-founded the Law Office of Meyer, Villalobos, and Borthwick.  The firm has offices in Modesto and Santa Ana, and has employed eight employees over the course of the past seven years.  In his capacity as a small business owner, Ruben has learned the importance of fiscal responsibility, both in good and bad economic times, and has maintained a successful business despite the economic downturn in our state. As part of his duties as an attorney practicing before the juvenile courts, Ruben works regularly with Superior Court judges, deputy district attorneys, probation officers and other members of law enforcement to develop strategies to reduce recidivism rates for juveniles in the court system. To assist the public and taxpayers in a time of budget crisis, he regularly takes cases without compensation.    In 2004, Ruben joined the Board of Directors of the Children's Crisis Center, a local organization that provides child abuse prevention and intervention services to abused, neglected and at-risk children. Last year, the Crisis Center provided 223,583 shelter-hours to over 7,200 local children. Ruben brought his experience as a lawyer and business leader to a successful organization coping with external financial challenges, such as the state budget impasse, revenue-affecting ballot propositions, and declining charitable giving.    Ruben enjoys volunteering his time with the Modesto High School Mock Trial team, traveling, watching football and Olympic sports, reading, and spending time with his family.

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