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Oct. 6, 2026

Judge Michael Smyth goes from the presiding judge's office to an overloaded civil courtroom

After helping decide how many judges San Diego's civil courts needed, former Presiding Judge Michael T. Smyth now handles a 1,400-case calendar and concedes he underestimated the workload.

Read more about Michael T. Smyth...
Judge Michael Smyth goes from the presiding judge's office to an overloaded civil courtroom

Michael T. Smyth

San Diego County Superior Court

Career Highlights: Elected to the San Diego County Superior Court, 2002; assistant to San Diego Chief of Police, David Bejarano, 1999-2002; deputy city attorney, police legal advisor, San Diego, 1997-1999; head trial deputy city attorney, San Diego, 1994-1997; deputy city attorney, San Diego, 1991-1994

Law School: University of San Diego School of Law
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Superior Court Judge Michael T. Smyth helped decide how many judges San Diego's civil courts needed. Now that he sits in one of those departments, he thinks he underestimated the problem.

As presiding judge of the San Diego County Superior Court in 2022 and 2023, Smyth reviewed how judicial officers were distributed across the court and added two judges to civil as filings and workloads shifted among assignments.

From his current seat, where roughly 1,400 cases comp... (continued)

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