Tara M. Desautels

Tara M. Desautels was appointed to the First District Court of Appeal, Division Two, by Governor Gavin Newsom in March 2024 and was confirmed as an associate justice by the Commission on Judicial Appointments in May 2024.

Prior to being elevated to the appellate bench, Justice Desautels served 14 years as a judge for Alameda County Superior Court, to which she was appointed in 2010 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  During her tenure, Justice Desautels presided over family, criminal, juvenile, and civil departments in addition to serving in a number of supervisory positions, included the elected positions of assistant presiding judge and presiding judge from 2018 through 2021.  During her term as presiding judge, Justice Desautels also served two terms as vice-chair of the statewide Trial Court Presiding Judges Advisory Committee to the Judicial Council of California.  Justice Desautels has also actively served on judicial committees within Alameda County Superior Court and with the California Judges Association.  Currently, Justice Desautels serves as a member of the Judicial Council’s Information Technology Advisory Committee and as chair of its Joint Information Security Governance Subcommittee.

Prior to her appointment to the bench, Justice Desautels worked as a civil litigator at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, LLP, where her practice included state and federal litigation, as well as corporate investigations, white-collar defense, antitrust, and unfair competition claims.  Before her time in private practice, Justice Desautels worked as a Deputy District Attorney with the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office for almost 8 years, handling myriad criminal matters, including working as a member of the Child Sexual Assault team and as a liaison to California’s Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement Task Force.

Justice Desautels is also active in the community, supporting her children’s scholastic and extracurricular activities by volunteering as needed in positions such as class parent, assistant scoutmaster, team manager, and carpool coordinator.  Justice Desautels previously acted as board member and chair of CALICO, Alameda County’s Child Abuse, Listening, Interviewing, and Coordination Center, which conducts forensic interviews of child and other victims of crime.  Justice Desautels is a longstanding member of the Alameda County Bar Association, which presented her with the Distinguished Service Award for Judge in 2018, and served multiple years as judicial liaison for the Minority Bar Coalition and for the Women Lawyers of Alameda County, which honored her after her initial appointment in 2010 and as Woman Jurist of Distinction in 2016.

Justice Desautels graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service with First Honors and a B.S. in International Relations, Law and Organization.  After working as a legal assistant at the former Brown & Wood in New York’s World Trade Center, Justice Desautels returned to California to earn her J.D. from UC Law San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings), where she served an Executive Editor for the Hastings Law Journal and earned American Jurisprudence Awards in Contracts and Trial Advocacy.

Justice Desautels is proud to have lived and worked in four of the twelve counties that comprise the First District.  In her free time, Justice Desautels enjoys activities that involve water in all its forms.