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

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

Missouri Court of Appeals / Joined 2010 / Active

William W. Francis Jr.

Judge, Missouri Court of Appeals

William W. Francis Jr. is a Judge of the Missouri Court of Appeals, serving since 2010. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: Since 2010 · 16 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2010	Missouri Court of Appeals	–	–

Education

University of Missouri-Columbia

Judicial Record

In our data, Francis authored 372 published opinions for the court (2010–2022), plus 1 dissent and 7 concurrences. Most cited: Autry Morlan Chevrolet, Cadillac, Inc. v. RJF Agencies, Inc. (37 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. 151 of these were attributed to Francis 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
2010	Autry Morlan Chevrolet, Cadillac, Inc. v. RJF Agencies, Inc.	332 S.W.3d 184	37
2017	Nichols v. Belleview R-III School District†	528 S.W.3d 918	35
2014	CARL E. SMITH and MARGARITA SMITH v. GREAT AMERICAN ASSURANCE COMPANY, GREGORY HERKERT, and THE STOLAR PARTERSHIP, LLP· Concurrence†	436 S.W.3d 700	34
2013	Adoption of C.M. v. E.M.B.R.†	414 S.W.3d 622	25
2010	State v. Hawkins	328 S.W.3d 799	25
2011	State v. Cannafax	344 S.W.3d 279	24
2014	Stephens v. Dunn†	453 S.W.3d 241	21
2010	State v. Mort	321 S.W.3d 471	21
2012	Stacker v. State†	357 S.W.3d 300	19
2014	Executive Board v. Windermere Baptist Conference Center, Inc.†	430 S.W.3d 274	18
2013	Progressive Northwestern Insurance Co. v. Talbert†	407 S.W.3d 1	18
2012	Hardy v. State†	387 S.W.3d 394	18
2018	Tracfone Wireless, Inc. v. City of Springfield†	557 S.W.3d 439	17
2012	Underwood v. High Road Industries, LLC†	369 S.W.3d 59	17
2011	State v. Breedlove	348 S.W.3d 810	17

Showing the 15 most-cited of 380 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 Missouri Court of Appeals reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.
Which court is William W. Francis Jr. on?: William W. Francis Jr. is a Judge of the Missouri Court of Appeals.

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.

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