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 1985 / Served to 2011

David George Sills

Presiding Justice, California Court of Appeal

David George Sills was a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal, who joined the court in 1985. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1938–2011
Tenure: 1985–2011 · 25 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1985	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1990	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Sills authored 373 published opinions for the court (1988–2011), plus 3 dissents and 13 concurrences. Most cited: Orange County Social Services Agency v. Doris F. (451 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. 65 of these were attributed to Sills 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
1997	Orange County Social Services Agency v. Doris F.	56 Cal. App. 4th 519	451
1996	In Re John W.	41 Cal. App. 4th 961	162
2000	In Re Cliffton B.	96 Cal. Rptr. 2d 778	160
2001	Cesar v. v. Superior Court	111 Cal. Rptr. 2d 243	144
2008	In Re William B.	163 Cal. App. 4th 1220	133
1992	Halbert's Lumber, Inc. v. Lucky Stores, Inc.	6 Cal. App. 4th 1233	132
2001	Orange County Social Services Agency v. Remberto C.	113 Cal. Rptr. 2d 597	118
2007	Orange County Social Services Agency v. Jamie W.	57 Cal. Rptr. 3d 914	117
2009	Kobayashi v. Superior Court	175 Cal. App. 4th 536	115
2010	Mabry v. Superior Court	185 Cal. App. 4th 208	112
2003	Harper v. Ultimo	7 Cal. Rptr. 3d 418	96
1997	In Re Marriage of Schulze	60 Cal. App. 4th 519	94
2000	In Re Jasmine G.	98 Cal. Rptr. 2d 93	93
1993	ACL Technologies, Inc. v. Northbrook Property & Casualty Insurance	17 Cal. App. 4th 1773	93
1996	BLANCA P. v. Superior Court	45 Cal. App. 4th 1738	91

Showing the 15 most-cited of 389 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 was David George Sills on?: David George Sills was 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

See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.

25 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).