The Committee on Appellate Courts of the California Lawyers Association’s Litigation Section is pleased to recognize David S. Ettinger as the recipient of the 2025 Appellate Lawyer Hall of Fame award. The award will be presented at a special reception on April 24 at 5:30 p.m. at the California Lawyers Association’s Litigation and Appellate Summit in San Francisco on April 24-25, 2025.
This prestigious award, first given in 2018, is among the few devoted to recognition of appellate practice. The award honors attorneys who have excelled as appellate lawyers and whose careers exemplify the highest of values and professional attainment. David joins prior inductees Ellis Horvitz, Jon Eisenberg, Dennis Riordan, Wendy Lascher, Hal Cohen, Richard Benes, and Margaret Grignon in the Appellate Lawyer Hall of Fame.
David Ettinger graduated cum laude from Loyola Law School of Los Angeles in 1980. He then clerked for Presiding Justice Margaret J. Morris on the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division Two. After his clerkship, David joined Horvitz & Levy LLP, where he later became a partner and currently serves as of counsel.
David has briefed and argued many notable appeals, including more than a dozen arguments before the California Supreme Court. In addition to his impact as a practitioner, David has a distinguished record of service in the appellate field. As one illustration, he served on the Appellate Advisory Committee for the Judicial Council of California and the Appellate Rules Revision Project Task Force, which comprehensively revised the California Rules of Court governing appeals.
In addition to publishing on appellate issues, David is the primary writer for Horvitz & Levy’s At the Lectern blog covering the California Supreme Court. He is a former president of the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers, former chair of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Appellate Courts Committee, and has served as a lecturer in the Appellate Litigation Clinic at the University of California, Irvine School of Law.
David is uniformly known to be generous with his time—as mentor, colleague, and volunteer in the community. He has extensively engaged in pro bono matters, working with organizations such as the Harriett Buhai Center for Family Law (where he served for many years on the board of directors), Public Counsel, Western Center on Law and Poverty, the Alliance for Children’s Rights, and Immigrant Defenders Law Center. David is also active in Teach Democracy, where he has met with high school students in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties to educate them about the role of appeals in our legal system. He currently serves on the board of directors of the California Supreme Court Historical Society.
Please join us in congratulating David. We hope to see you at the ALHOF reception at the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco on April 24 at 5:30 p.m.
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