How do judges of the California Court of Appeal reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.

California Court of Appeal / Joined 2006 / Active

Brad R. Hill

Presiding Justice, California Court of Appeal

Brad R. Hill is a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal (89 judges, selected by merit selection with retention), serving since 2006. He previously served on the Superior Court of California, County of Fresno. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: Since 2006 · 20 yrs
Education: California State-Fresno 1977

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2003	Superior Court of California, County of Fresno	–	–
2006	California Court of Appeal	–	–
2010	California Court of Appeal	–	–
2010	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Education

California State University-Fresno	Business Administration, magna cum laude	1977
California State University-Fresno	Business Administration	1979
UC Law San Francisco		1983

Judicial Record

In our data, Hill authored 34 published opinions for the court (2006–2019). Most cited: In re Ramirez (101 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 25 of these were attributed to Hill by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2019	In re Ramirez†	243 Cal. Rptr. 3d 753	101
2009	Manson, Iver & York v. Black	176 Cal. App. 4th 36	61
2017	Sanchez v. Kern Emergency Medical Transportation Corp.†	8 Cal. App. 5th 146	55
2012	Batarse v. Service Employees International Union†	209 Cal. App. 4th 820	50
2013	Sky River LLC v. County of Kern†	214 Cal. App. 4th 720	37
2011	Baeza v. Superior Court†	201 Cal. App. 4th 1214	37
2013	Tearlach Resources Ltd. v. Western States International, Inc.†	219 Cal. App. 4th 773	30
2018	Hansen v. Sandridge Partners, L.P.†	232 Cal. Rptr. 3d 247	29
2006	Bakersfield Elementary Teachers Ass'n v. Bakersfield City School District	52 Cal. Rptr. 3d 486	25
2008	Patterson Flying Service v. Department of Pesticide Regulation	74 Cal. Rptr. 3d 290	24
2013	Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. v. Department of Transportation†	220 Cal. App. 4th 87	23
2007	Essex Insurance v. City of Bakersfield	65 Cal. Rptr. 3d 1	20
2019	Berkeley Cement, Inc. v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal.†	242 Cal. Rptr. 3d 252	19
2015	Cruz v. Sun World International, LLC†	243 Cal. App. 4th 367	18
2008	Great American Insurance Companies v. Gordon Trucking, Inc.	165 Cal. App. 4th 445	14

Showing the 15 most-cited of 34 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the California Court of Appeal reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.
Which court is Brad R. Hill on?: Brad R. Hill is a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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20 years on the California Court of Appeal. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).