How do judges of the Court of Appeals of Tennessee reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.

Court of Appeals of Tennessee / Joined 2008 / Active

Steven J. Stafford

Judge, Court of Appeals of Tennessee

Steven J. Stafford is a Judge of the Court of Appeals of Tennessee, serving since 2008. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: Since 2008 · 18 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2008	Court of Appeals of Tennessee	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Stafford authored 840 published opinions for the court (2008–2026), plus 2 dissents and 1 concurrence. Most cited: Chiozza v. Chiozza (242 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. 19 of these were attributed to Stafford 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
2009	Chiozza v. Chiozza	315 S.W.3d 482	242
2013	In Re JACOBE M.J.	434 S.W.3d 565	229
2016	In re Navada N.†	498 S.W.3d 579	218
2011	Charlotte Scott Forbess v. Michael E. Forbess	370 S.W.3d 347	160
2013	Kim Brown v. Christian Brothers University	428 S.W.3d 38	130
2010	In Re Arteria H.	326 S.W.3d 167	127
2014	Candace Watson v. City of Jackson	448 S.W.3d 919	116
2012	PNC Multifamily Capital Institutional Fund XXVI Limited Partnership v. Bluff City Community Development Corporation	387 S.W.3d 525	116
2012	In The Matter of: Dakota C.R.	404 S.W.3d 484	101
2018	In Re Addalyne S.	556 S.W.3d 774	59
2012	Robert Thomas Edmunds v. Delta Partners, L.L.C.	403 S.W.3d 812	56
2010	Moran v. WILLENSKY	339 S.W.3d 651	51
2009	State, Department of Children's Services v. Hood	338 S.W.3d 917	51
2015	Akilah Louise Wofford v. M.J. Edwards & Sons Funeral Home Inc.	490 S.W.3d 800	45
2012	Cardiac Anesthesia Services, PLLC v. Jon Jones	385 S.W.3d 530	43

Showing the 15 most-cited of 843 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 Court of Appeals of Tennessee reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is gubernatorial appointment.
Which court is Steven J. Stafford on?: Steven J. Stafford is a Judge of the Court of Appeals of Tennessee.

Sources

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

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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