Judge Laurie Earl (Lincoln Law School Class of 1988) was elected by the judges of the Sacramento County Superior Court to the position of presiding judge with her two-year term of office beginning on January 1, 2012. Judge Earl started her legal career as an assistant public defender, and in 1995, she left the Public Defender’s Office to work as a deputy district attorney. In 2004, she was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger as a Senior Assistant Inspector General for the State of California. In that position she was assigned to the Bureau of Independent Review overseeing the Department of Correction’s internal affairs investigations. She was appointed judge of the Sacramento County Superior Court in 2005, and in 2010, she was named Judge of the Year by the Capitol City Trial Lawyers Association.