TOPEKA--Caleb Stegall will be sworn in as judge of the Kansas Court of Appeals at 2 p.m. Friday, Jan. 3, in the courtroom of the Supreme Court in the Kansas Judicial Center, Topeka.
Court of Appeals Chief Judge Thomas Malone will preside at the ceremony.
Stegall was appointed 14th judge of the Court of Appeals by Gov. Sam Brownback. He is the first Court of Appeals judge to be confirmed to the bench by the Kansas Senate under a new selection process enacted by the 2013 Legislature.
Prior to his appointment, Stegall served as chief legal counsel to Gov. Brownback, where he was the top legal adviser to the Kansas executive branch and oversaw the work of more than 100 executive branch attorneys in the legal departments of 13 cabinet agencies.
From 2005 to 2011, Stegall managed Stegall & Associates in Perry, Kansas, which was recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of Kansas’ top law firms. Stegall was awarded the Kansas Bar Association’s 2010 Pro Bono Certificate for successfully representing American missionaries charged with serious crimes in Haiti following that country’s devastating earthquake in 2010.
From 2009 to 2011, Stegall served as the elected Jefferson County Attorney, where he oversaw a full-time staff that managed a yearly caseload of hundreds of misdemeanors and felonies.
Upon his admission to the bar in 2000, Judge Stegall served as a law clerk to the Honorable Deanell R. Tacha, chief judge of the Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. He then joined the Topeka office of the Foulston Siefkin law firm, where he practiced in the areas of commercial, tort and appellate litigation.
Stegall earned his Juris Doctorate in December 1999 from the University of Kansas School of Law, where he served on the Kansas Law Review; was awarded the William L. Burdick Prize, given to the top student in his or her class; and graduated Order of the Coif. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.
Stegall and his wife, Ann, have five children—Simon, Jacob, Ethan, Theodore and Quentin. They are members of the Grace Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Lawrence.