The Hon.

Tara

M.

Desautels

Tara M. Desautels is an Associate Justice of California’s First District Court of Appeal, Division Two.  Prior to her confirmation in May 2024, Justice Desautels served 14 years as a judge for the Alameda County Superior Court.  During that time, 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.  

Before her judicial appointment, Justice Desautels worked as a civil litigator at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, LLP in San Francisco, where her practice included state and federal litigation, as well as corporate investigations, white-collar defense, antitrust, and unfair competition claims.  Justice Desautels began her legal career working as a Deputy District Attorney with the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, 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 graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service with First Honors and a B.S. in International Relations, Law, and Organization.  Justice Desautels earned 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.