The White House on July 26 announced the nomination of Judge Eumi Lee, currently serving on the Superior Court of Alameda County in Northern California, to become a federal district court judge in San Francisco.
Pending confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Judge Lee will fill the vacancy left by Judge William Orrick III, who took a higher position in May.
Judge Eumi Lee was appointed in 2018 by former California Governor Jerry Brown as the first Korean American judge in Alameda County, which encompasses San Francisco and the Bay Area.
Having earned her degrees from Pomona College and Georgetown University Law Center, Lee gained valuable experience as a law clerk for Judge Jerome Turner at the District Court for the Western District of Tennessee and for Judge Warren Ferguson, a federal appeals judge with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Subsequently, she practiced law at various reputable Northern California law firms, including Thelen Reid and Priest, Keker and Van Nest, and Gonzalez and Leigh.
Judge Lee has a distinguished academic background, serving as a former Clinical professor at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She has been actively involved in legal education since 2005 and co-founded the Hastings Institute for Criminal Justice in 2010, where she also served as co-director until 2012.
In addition to her academic and judicial roles, Lee made significant contributions as an Ethics trainer from 2009 to 2013 at prominent utility companies such as San Diego Gas and Electric, Southern California Gas Company, and Southern California Edison.
If confirmed, Judge Eumi Lee will not only bring a wealth of experience and diversity to the federal bench but will also continue to break barriers as a prominent Korean American judicial figure in the United States.
BY NICOLE CHANG [chang.nicole@koreadaily.com]
