Allison Marston DannerIncumbent

Candidate for Court of Appeal Justice, California Court of Appeal, Sixth Appellate District, Seat 7

Allison M. Danner has served as an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal, Sixth District, in San Jose, since July 26, 2018. She graduated magna cum laude, with honors in history, from Williams College in 1993. She earned her J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1997. There, she was an editor of the Stanford Law Review and the Stanford Journal of International Law. She was a clerk for Judge John T. Noonan Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She then was a clerk for Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court. From 2001 to 2007, she was a law professor at Vanderbilt University Law School. There, she taught criminal law, public international law, and international criminal law. She has also been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and at UCLA School of Law. She has also taught as an adjunct professor at Stanford Law School. From July 2007 to June 2012, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of California. She took on cases such as wire fraud, drug plots, and mortgage fraud. From 2009 to 2010, she was an Attorney-Adviser in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, in Washington, D.C. Gov. Jerry Brown put her on the Santa Clara County Superior Court in 2012, where she served for six years as a trial judge. Brown then put her on the Sixth District Court of Appeal on June 1, 2018, and she took her oath of office on July 26, 2018. Voters chose to keep her in November 2018 for the rest of a term that ends in early January 2027. She now faces a nonpartisan retention vote on the November 3, 2026 ballot. If most voters mark yes, she keeps her seat for a new 12-year term. As of August 2026, no group had been found campaigning for or against her.

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