Alison M. Tucher

Biography for Justice Alison M. Tucher:

Alison M. Tucher became Presiding Justice of Division Three of the First Appellate District of the California Court of Appeal in August 2021, after serving three years as an Associate Justice in Division Four.  Before joining this court, she was a judge on the Alameda County Superior Court, where she sat in family law and criminal court assignments, chaired her court’s committees on judicial education and juror participation, and was assigned pro tem to Division Two of the First Appellate District.

Justice Tucher grew up in the Bay Area.  She left to earn a B.A. in economics from Williams College and a B.A./M.A. in engineering on a scholarship at Cambridge University.  She then worked in national security and arms control in Washington, D.C. before returning to the Bay Area to study law.  At Stanford Law School, she served on the editorial board of the law review and earned her J.D. Order of the Coif.

Justice Tucher began her legal career as a law clerk for Judge William Norris on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice David Souter on the United States Supreme Court.  She then spent three years as a Deputy District Attorney trying criminal cases in Santa Clara County.

In 1998, Justice Tucher joined Morrison & Foerster LLP in San Francisco, where she practiced law until her appointment to the bench at the end of 2013.  At the firm, she handled a variety of intellectual property and commercial cases in trial courts, appellate courts, and private arbitrations.  Benchmark Litigation listed her among the “Top 250 Women in Litigation” nationally and among “Local Litigation Stars of California.”  Justice Tucher also maintained an active pro bono practice, twice winning freedom for men wrongfully convicted of murder.  For one of these cases, she received an award from the Santa Clara County Trial Lawyers Association and was profiled on CBS News’ The Early Show as an “American Hero.”

While practicing law, Justice Tucher sat on several non-profit boards and lectured at several law schools, co-teaching a Stanford Law School course on trade secrets.  Currently, she serves as Vice-Chair of the Criminal Law Advisory Committee of the Judicial Council of California and as the committee’s liaison to the Tribal Court-State Court Forum.  She is a member of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers’ Board of Governors, the American Law Institute, and the Bay Area Appellate American Inn of Court and teaches and writes on legal topics. 

Justice Tucher (pronounced “Too’-ker”) and her husband are the parents of two grown children.