Cynthia C. Lie

Cynthia C. Lie (\ Lē \; 이진영) was appointed to the Court of Appeal, Sixth Appellate District by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2021. She previously served on the Superior Court for the County of Santa Clara, following her appointment in 2014 by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr.

In the superior court, Justice Lie served as a trial judge in the criminal, family, and civil divisions. She was also assigned to the superior court’s appellate division and was designated the appellate division’s presiding judge in 2020.

Before her appointment to the bench, Justice Lie was a trial lawyer for many years, first with the Office of the Public Defender for the County of San Diego, and later with the Federal Public Defender for the Northern District of California, where she supervised the San Jose branch office. She also worked as a staff attorney for the San Francisco Police Commission’s civilian oversight agency, and in private practice as a solo practitioner and as a litigation associate with Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton.

Justice Lie earned her J.D. in 1995 from Berkeley School of Law, where she received a number of academic awards. The University of California, Berkeley was also her undergraduate institution, from which she graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1990 with a B.A. degree in Comparative Literature.