In 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom tapped Laurie M. Earl for a vacancy on the Third District Court of Appeal. The former Sacramento County Superior Court judge was confirmed in January 2022 to become the District’s first LGBTQ member. In March 2023 Governor Newsom nominated her to serve as its presiding justice. In July she was confirmed to that post.
Before becoming a judge, Justice Earl Justice Earl graduated from University of California at Berkeley and then earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Lincoln Law School of Sacramento. She served as an Assistant Public Defender in the Sacramento County Public Defender’s Office from 1989 to 1995, and a Deputy District Attorney in the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office from 1995 to 2004. She was a Senior Assistant Inspector General at the California Office of Inspector General from 2004 to 2005 until her appointment to the Sacramento County Superior Court where she served from 2005 to 2021.
In 2012 she was elected by the judges of the Sacramento County Superior Court to the position of presiding judge. In 2010, she was named Judge of the Year by the Capitol City Trial Lawyers Association.