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 2005 / Active

Frances Rothschild

Presiding Justice, California Court of Appeal

Frances Rothschild is a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal (89 judges, selected by merit selection with retention), serving since 2005. She previously served on the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1942 · age 84
Tenure: Since 2005 · 21 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1978	Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles	–	–
2005	California Court of Appeal	–	–
2014	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Education

Rutgers University-New Brunswick		1962
University of California-Los Angeles		1963
University of California-Los Angeles		1966

Judicial Record

In our data, Rothschild authored 121 published opinions for the court (2005–2019), plus 7 dissents and 13 concurrences. Most cited: Los Angeles County v. David H. (170 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. 93 of these were attributed to Rothschild 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
2011	Los Angeles County v. David H.†	192 Cal. App. 4th 713	170
2014	Prakashpalan v. Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack· Concurrence†	223 Cal. App. 4th 1105	150
2012	Los Angeles County Department of Children & Family Services v. Rosemarie H.†	210 Cal. App. 4th 999	135
2014	Los Angeles County Department of Children & Family Services v. T.A.†	225 Cal. App. 4th 803	95
2016	People v. Weddington· Concurrence†	246 Cal. App. 4th 468	85
2012	Peleg v. Neiman Marcus Group, Inc.· Dissent†	204 Cal. App. 4th 1425	76
2012	People v. McCloud†	211 Cal. App. 4th 788	75
2008	Los Angeles County Department of Children & Family Services v. Joseph T.	163 Cal. App. 4th 787	75
2011	Bower v. AT&T Mobility, LLC†	196 Cal. App. 4th 1545	62
2010	Laswell v. Ag Seal Beach, LLC†	189 Cal. App. 4th 1399	60
2011	Fossum v. Fossum· Concurrence†	192 Cal. App. 4th 336	57
2008	Jogani v. Superior Court	165 Cal. App. 4th 901	56
2012	People v. Verba†	210 Cal. App. 4th 991	52
2010	D.C. v. R.R.· Dissent†	182 Cal. App. 4th 1190	51
2011	Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services v. Irene V.· Concurrence†	195 Cal. App. 4th 197	49

Showing the 15 most-cited of 141 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 Frances Rothschild on?: Frances Rothschild 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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21 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).