Yet another top level legal pick after Srinivasan.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: President Barack Obama has nominated Vince Girdhari Chhabria to be the United States District Judge for the Northern District of California.
Chhabria, a renowned legal mind, is currently the deputy city attorney for government litigation in San Francisco, since 2005.
Chhabria is not the first Indian-American to be nominated by Obama for significant government posts. Earlier this year, Obama appointed Sri Srinivasan, a former Appeals Court lawyer, to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Many pundits have even said the appointment has put Srinivasan on the fast-track for a Supreme Court appointment.
A graduate of University of California Santa Cruz in 1991, Chabbria received his JD from the Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley in 1998.
Chhabria served as a law clerk to Judge Charles Breyer of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, from 1998 to 1999. He also clerked for Judge James R. Browning of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, from 1999 to 2000.
In 2001, he worked as an associate at the law firm of Keker & Van Nest, LLP, and that same year went on to work for Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the United States Supreme Court. From 2002 to 2004, he worked as an associate at the law firm of Covington & Burling, LLP.
Chhabria, along with the five other nominations Obama made, must now wait for confirmation from the Senate.
If confirmed, Chhabria would be the first South Asian Article III judge in the history of the state of California.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com