Lincoln Law School’s 2012 Alumnus of the Year

Honorable Laurie Earl, Class of 1988 and the presiding judge for the Sacramento County Superior Court

According to a 2005 article by John Bachman, Earl started her career in the Public Defender’s Office, then switched to the District Attorney’s Office, briefly working for the Office of Inspector General before being appointed to the bench.
Early in her career, she was a member of the Sacramento County District Attorney’s DNA Committee, which reviewed and approved cases for testing at the county forensics laboratory. Earl and Anne Marie Schubert helped file the state’s first “John Doe” arrest warrant based on a DNA profile, preventing the statute of limitations from precluding future prosecution. In a second “John Doe” DNA arrest warrant, the office got the first cold case hit in the nation, leading to the arrest and conviction of a rapist.
In 1995, after six years as a public defender, she decided to transfer to the District Attorney’s Office where she had found her niche .
Earl worked on the office’s trial team, handling serious crimes and major felonies. She was also on the DNA committee, which reviewed, in part, cases for further investigation.
She stayed nearly 10 years in the District Attorney’s Office before transferring to the state Office of Inspector General, which investigates allegations of employee misconduct in the state prison system.
In 2005, she was tapped by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for her current position on the Superior Court bench.
She’s also the one to thank if you ever participate in the Lincoln Law School’s Mentoring Program. It was her idea to create a program that would give 3rd and 4th year law students a behind-the-scenes perspective on a court session.