The Hon. Dorothy C. Kim is an Associate Justice for the California 2nd District Court of Appeal in District 5. She was appointed to the court by former Governor Jerry Brown in 2018 to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Sandy R. Kriegler. Then-Governor Brown had originally appointed Judge Kim to the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2014 to replace the retiring Linda K. Lefkowitz.
She is a registered Democrat.
Judge Kim received her B.A. from Cornell University. She went on to earn her J.D. from Columbia Law School.
After graduating from law school, Kim clerked for the Hon. Norman H. Stahl with the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal in 1998. In 2000 she joined the law firm of Irell and Manella, LLP as a litigation associate. She was with the firm for one year until leaving to join the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, where she served first as an assistant U.S. attorney in 2001, and then in 2010, was named deputy chief of the Criminal Division. She remained with the Attorney's Office until her appointment to the Superior Court in 2014.
She holds the distinction of being the first Korean-American to serve on the Court of Appeal in the history of California.