Justice Kelli Evans
San Francisco, CA

• Appointed by the California Access to Justice Commission

• Current Term Extends through June 30, 2031

Justice Evans served as an Alameda County Superior Court judge since 2021. Before that, she served as chief deputy legal affairs secretary in the Office of Governor Gavin Newsom, where she advised the Governor and executive agencies on a myriad of issues involving administrative proceedings and involving state and federal trial and appellate courts.

Justice Evans served as special assistant to the attorney general at the California Department of Justice from 2017 to 2019 and was senior director for the administration of justice at the California State Bar from 2014 to 2017. She was associate director of the ACLU of Northern California from 2010 to 2013, where she served as an attorney from 1995 to 1998. She was a partner at Independent Assessment & Monitoring LLP from 2006 to 2010 and an associate at Relman and Associates from 2001 to 2004. Justice Evans served as a senior trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1998 to 2001 and as an assistant public defender at the Sacramento County Public Defender’s Office in 1995. She has served as a member of federal court-appointed monitoring teams for the Oakland and Cleveland Police Departments.

Instilled with the importance of education by her grandmother, Justice Evans excelled academically and was able to attend a top-rated high school after her family moved from a public housing project to a HUD-subsidized apartment. One of only a small number of students of color at the school, she managed to thrive and graduate among the top of her class while working 20 hours a week to help support her family. Justice Evans went on to attend Stanford University and earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Davis School of Law, where she received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for exceptional public service.