Justice Donald B. King

1931 - 2025

Justice Donald B. King
02/24/1931 - 11/15/2025
Justice Donald B. King (ret.) passed away at the age of 94 on November 15, 2025. He died peacefully and with grace and courage, his wife Nikki and his son Jordan by his side. The cause was pancreatic cancer.
Don was born in San Francisco in 1931 and lived there until 2009, when he and Nikki moved to Santa Rosa. He graduated from Lincoln High School and attended University of San Francisco for both college and law school. During the summer after his second year of law school, he played basketball on a U.S. State Department goodwill tour of Central and South America, competing against several Olympic national teams. His teammates included future NBA greats Bill Russell and K.C. Jones.
Don and Nikki married in 1957. As his lifelong partner, Nikki was instrumental in Don's success at the bar and on the bench. Don frequently spoke of his gratitude for her partnership in love and work.
After graduating from law school, Don spent nearly two decades in private civil practice in the West Portal neighborhood of San Francisco. He was also in politics, serving as Chair of the San Francisco Democratic Central Committee from 1962 to 1966. Jordan was born in 1970.
Don served as a Judge of the San Francisco Superior Court from 1976 to 1982 and as a Justice of the California Court of Appeal from 1983 to 1996. He was a giant in the field of California family law. On the trial bench, Don pioneered the use of mediation in marital dissolution and child custody proceedings, which brought a paradigm shift from an adversarial model to one of helping the parties to collectively make their own best decisions.
On the appellate bench, Don published hundreds of precedential opinions, making key contributions to the development of California law on a wide variety of subjects. He also co-authored the leading treatise on California family law, The Rutter Group's California Practice Guide: Family Law. After leaving the bench, he continued his work in family law as a practicing arbitrator and mediator, staying active into his early 90s.
Don was thoughtful, wise, patient, calm and composed, both on the bench and in his personal affairs. He had the perfect judicial temperament. He lived a good life from start to finish and died with a smile on his face.
A celebration of life will be announced at a future date.