Kelli Evans (born July 9, 1968) is an American lawyer who serves as an associate justice of the

Supreme Court of California The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...

. She previously served as a judge of the Alameda County Superior Court.

Education

Evans received a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1991 and a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

from

UC Davis School of Law The University of California, Davis School of Law (Martin Luther King Jr. Hall), referred to as UC Davis School of Law and commonly known as King Hall, is the professional graduate law school of the University of California, Davis. The school rec ...

in 1994.

Career

In 1995, Evans served as the assistant

public defender A public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who otherwise cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer to defend themselves in a trial. Several countries provide people with public defenders, including the UK, Hungary and Singapore, ...

in the Sacramento County Public Defender's Office. From 1998 to 2001, she was a senior trial attorney at the

United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is the institution within the federal government responsible for enforcing federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion Religion is usually d ...

. From 2001 to 2004, she was an associate with Relman and Associates and partner at Independent Assessment & Monitoring LLP from 2006 to 2010. From 2010 to 2013, she was the associate director of the ACLU of Northern California, where she previously served as an attorney from 1995 to 1998. From 2014 to 2017, she served as the senior director for the administration of justice at the

California State Bar The State Bar of California is California's official attorney licensing agency. It is responsible for managing the admission of lawyers to the practice of law, investigating complaints of professional misconduct, prescribing appropriate disciplin ...

and from 2017 to 2019, she was special assistant to the attorney general at the

California Department of Justice The California Department of Justice is a statewide investigative law enforcement agency and legal department of the California executive branch under the elected leadership of the California Attorney General (AG) which carries out complex cri ...

. Evans was a member of the

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Police Monitoring Team. Evans served as a federal court monitor overseeing that the

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, police department complied with a consent decree that required civil rights reforms. Prior to being appointed to the bench, Evans was chief deputy legal affairs secretary in the Office of Governor Newsom. Evans served as a judge of the Alameda County Superior Court from 2021 to 2023.

California Supreme Court

On August 10, 2022, Governor

Gavin Newsom Gavin Christopher Newsom (born October 10, 1967) is an American politician and businessman who has been the 40th governor of California since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California fr ...

nominated Evans to serve as an associate justice of the

, to the seat to be vacated by

Patricia Guerrero Patricia Guerrero (born 1971/1972) is an American judge serving as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California since March 2022. Guerrero was previously an associate justice of the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District, D ...

, who has been nominated to serve as chief justice. She would be the first openly lesbian associate justice, and the second out

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

to serve on the court. On November 10, 2022 the Commission on Judicial Appointments voted unanimously to approve Evans to the California Supreme Court. She was sworn into office on January 2, 2023.https://newsroom.courts.ca.gov/news/new-california-chief-justice-patricia-guerrero-takes-office As of 2023, with her swearing in,

Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

justices make up half of the associate justices on the court. She is the first openly LGBTQ Woman and first LGBTQ Woman of Color to serve on the court.

Personal life

Evans is a Democrat. Evans and her wife, Terri Shaw, have a daughter in college and live in Oakland.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Evans, Kelli 1960s births Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American women lawyers 20th-century American lawyers 21st-century American women judges 21st-century American women lawyers 21st-century American lawyers 21st-century LGBT people 21st-century women judges California lawyers African-American judges African-American women lawyers American women judges California Democrats California state court judges Justices of the Supreme Court of California Lesbians LGBT judges LGBT lawyers LGBT people from California Public defenders Stanford University alumni Superior court judges in the United States UC Davis School of Law alumni United States Department of Justice lawyers

Education

Career

California Supreme Court

Personal life

See also

References