Appointed By: Gov. Edmund G. Brown, Jr.
The Hon. Robert A. O'Farrell (Ret.) was a judge for the Monterey County Superior Court in California. O'Farrell was appointed to the bench by former Governor Jerry Brown in 1981. He retired on August 1, 2009, and continued to serve part-time through the Judicial Council's Assigned Judges Program in Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz counties[1].
During his years on the bench, he served as presiding judge and as civil supervising judge[1]. The Monterey County Bar Association later described his thirty-five years of full-time judicial service as the longest in the county's history[1]. At the request of California's Chief Justice, he served on multiple occasions as an assigned justice on the California Court of Appeal, Sixth Appellate District[1]. In 2008, O'Farrell halted aerial spraying for the light brown apple moth in Monterey County[1]. He ruled that the California Department of Food and Agriculture had not provided substantial evidence of significant damage from the moth and had improperly claimed an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act[1].
O'Farrell earned an A.B. from California State University, Fresno. At the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly University of California, Hastings College of the Law), he completed a J.D. in 1968[1]. Before entering the legal profession, he worked as an appliance repairman, lima bean harvester, water truck driver, carpenter's assistant, busboy, waiter, wine steward in Yosemite, and taxi driver in San Francisco[1]. He was admitted to the State Bar of California (June 1968)[2].
After law school, O'Farrell began his legal career at the Ventura County Public Defender's Office[1]. In 1969, he moved to Monterey County to join the newly established Monterey County Public Defender's Office as a deputy public defender[1]. Harkjoon Paik, who headed the office, recruited him for that role[1]. In December 1973, he was named to the Castroville-Pajaro Justice Court[1]. After a year there, he served six years on the Monterey County Municipal Court[1].
His honors included the Justice Nat Agliano Lifetime Achievement Award from the Monterey County Bar Association in 2022[1].
Born in New York City, O'Farrell later lived in New Jersey before growing up in Ventura County, California[1]. He married his wife, Maria, in 1973, and they raised four children[1].
Outside the courtroom, he served as a 4-H leader, a volunteer judge for high school mock trial programs, and a member and president of the Palma High School Board of Directors[1]. He was an avid bicyclist and made several 300-mile trips by bicycle to his family home in Ventura.
[1] Monterey County Bar Association — Barline (Fall 2022)
[2] State Bar of California — Attorney Licensee Search
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