Profile of Kathleen M. Banke

Hon. Kathleen M. Banke, Associate Justice, Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division One

Justice Kathleen Banke was appointed to the First District Court of Appeal, Division One, in June 2009, and was confirmed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments on July 30, 2009. 

Prior to her appointment, Justice Banke sat on the Alameda County Superior Court, to which she was appointed in June 2006 and was elected in 2008.  While on the superior court, she was one of three judges appointed to the superior court’s Appellate Division and was an elected member of the court’s Executive Committee. 

Justice Banke has chaired and, for many years, served on the Judicial Council’s Center for Judicial Education and Research’s Appellate Practice Curriculum Committee, which is responsible for setting the statewide curriculum for continuing education for all appellate justices and appellate court staff attorneys.  She helped produce and participated in a number of the educational videos prepared by the Committee, including a series for new justices and new appellate staff attorneys.  She also has served as vice-chair and, for many years, served on the Judicial Council Appellate Advisory Committee, which identifies issues and concerns affecting appellate court administration, practice, and procedure; proposes necessary changes to appellate court rules, standards, and forms; reviews and recommends legislation relating to appellate courts, practice and procedures; and acts on assignments referred to it by the Judicial Council.  All Judicial Council committees work to ensure equal access to justice.  

Justice Banke has authored practice treatises and numerous articles on civil appellate and writ practice. She is the chief consulting editor of and a contributing author to California Civil Writ Practice (CEB 4th ed. 2008), which she also updates annually.  She is co-author of California Practice Guide: Civil Procedure Before Trial Statutes of Limitations (TRG 2026), which she also updates annually.  She has additionally been a contributing author to California Civil Appellate Practice (CEB 3d ed. 1996), Employment Litigation (TRG 2001), and Federal Civil Trials and Evidence (TRG 2000). Justice Banke has served as a practitioner-advisor in appellate advocacy at U.C. Berkeley School of Law, and before that as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law at U.C. Law San Francisco teaching civil appellate advocacy. She has taught many continuing legal education programs and has served as a moot court judge for local law schools and other moot court competitions.  She has been recognized with a “Spirit of CEB” award by the Continuing Education of the Bar and the University of California for her work in legal education.  

Before being appointed to the bench, Justice Banke was an appellate lawyer for more than twenty years, first with Crosby, Heafey, Roach & May and then, through a merger, with Reed Smith LLP.  For many years she was the practice group leader of the Crosby, Heafey statewide, and then the Reed Smith nationwide, Appellate Practice Group, and represented clients in the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the Ninth Circuit, the California Supreme Court, and all districts of the California Court of Appeal. She was counsel of record or co-counsel on more than 200 appeals and writs, many of which resulted in published opinions.  She was a certified specialist in appellate law by the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization, was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, and was an active member of the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers.  In the years immediately prior to her appointment to the bench, she was named by the East Bay Times as one of the “Top East Bay Attorneys” (2006), listed in “The Best Lawyers in America” (2005) and named as a “Super Lawyer” in the Bay Area in the field of appellate law and among the “Top 50” women attorneys in the Bay Area (2004 and 2005).