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 2000 / Active

Kathleen Elizabeth O'Leary

Presiding Justice, California Court of Appeal

Kathleen Elizabeth O'Leary is a Presiding Justice of the California Court of Appeal (89 judges, selected by merit selection with retention), serving since 2000. She previously served on the Superior Court of California, County of Orange. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1951 · age 75
Tenure: Since 2000 · 26 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1986	Superior Court of California, County of Orange	–	–
2000	California Court of Appeal	–	–
2012	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Education

Loyola Marymount University
Southwestern Law School		1975

Judicial Record

In our data, O'Leary authored 77 published opinions for the court (2000–2017), plus 3 concurrences. Most cited: Orange County Social Services Agency v. M.C. (326 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. 80 of these were attributed to O'Leary 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
2014	Orange County Social Services Agency v. M.C.†	226 Cal. App. 4th 503	326
2013	Jenkins v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.†	216 Cal. App. 4th 497	272
2006	NIKO v. Foreman†	50 Cal. Rptr. 3d 398	190
2009	Wilson v. County of Orange†	169 Cal. App. 4th 1185	120
2014	People v. Speight†	227 Cal. App. 4th 1229	108
2014	People v. Guillen†	227 Cal. App. 4th 934	104
2009	Kaldenbach v. Mutual of Omaha Life Insurance†	178 Cal. App. 4th 830	90
2001	Ellard v. Conway†	114 Cal. Rptr. 2d 399	75
2008	Unruh-Haxton v. Regents of University of California†	76 Cal. Rptr. 3d 146	72
2014	Yau v. Santa Margarita Ford†	229 Cal. App. 4th 144	64
2001	Bolter v. Superior Court†	104 Cal. Rptr. 2d 888	63
2015	Orange County Social Services Agency v. B.O.†	242 Cal. App. 4th 450	52
2002	People v. HAYKEL†	116 Cal. Rptr. 2d 667	41
2010	Forecast Homes, Inc. v. Steadfast Insurance†	181 Cal. App. 4th 1466	38
2002	Orange County Social Services Agency v. Maria S.†	128 Cal. Rptr. 2d 654	37

Showing the 15 most-cited of 80 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 Kathleen Elizabeth O'Leary on?: Kathleen Elizabeth O'Leary 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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26 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).