Bio: Edward M. Chen

MAGISTRATE JUDGE EDWARD M. CHEN
U.S. DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

On April 23, 2001, Edward M. Chen was appointed a federal Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of California. Judge Chen earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a 1979 graduate of the University of California Boalt Hall Law School. He served on the California Law Review and graduated Order of the Coif in the top 10 percent of his class. After clerking for U.S. District Judge Charles B. Renfrew and U.S. Court of Appeals Chief Judge James R. Browning, he practiced as a litigation associate with the law firm of Coblentz, Cahen, McCabe & Breyer where he handled commercial litigation. He joined the legal staff of the ACLU Foundation of Northern California in 1985.

At the ACLU, Judge Chen worked on a wide range of issues including free speech, employee privacy rights, police misconduct, and race and language discrimination. He worked on the legal team representing Fred Korematsu in successfully overturning his World War II conviction for failing to comply with the Japanese internment order. He testified before Congress and the EEOC on issues of national origin and language discrimination.

Judge Chen served as co-counsel along with Dale Minami in representing a broad coalition of national Asian Pacific American organizations and individuals who filed a petition with the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights protesting the broad-based scapegoating and stereotyping of Asian Americans by the media, major political parties, and Congress in their investigations and treatment of the campaign finance controversy in 1997.

As an attorney, Judge Chen was an active member of the bar, serving as a board member of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area and as a member of the Human Rights Committee of the California State Bar. He has published a number of articles including “The Judiciary, Diversity, and Justice for All,” 91 Calif. L. Rev. 1109 (2003) and other publications in the California Law Review, Asian Law Journal, George Mason Law Review, and Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal.

Judge Chen left the ACLU to take the bench as a federal magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California. He is the first Asian American to serve on that Court’s bench in its 150-year history. Following his appointment to the bench, Judge Chen has served as an officer of the California Asian American Judges Association, as a Master of the Edward J. McFetridge American Inn of Courts, as a member for the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area, and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.

He was appointed by Chief Judge Schroeder to the Ninth Circuit Task Force on Self-Represented Litigants, and then as the chair of the Ninth Circuit Implementation Committee on Self-Represented Litigants. He has also been appointed chair of the Federal Courts Committee on the California Commission on Access to Justice, and as the Northern District of California’s liaison judge on pro se matters.

He was voted Judge of the Year by the Barristers Club of San Francisco in 2007 and was ranked “exceptionally well qualified” by the Bar Association of San Francisco. Judge Chen has delivered speeches and given presentations on such subjects as electronic discovery, patent litigation, employment law, civil rights, alternative dispute resolution, judicial clerkships and Asian American legal history.

As a U.S. Magistrate Judge, Judge Chen handles both civil and criminal cases, has issued over 300 published rulings on a wide variety of civil and criminal matters, and has presided over 500 settlement conferences.  He enjoys an excellent reputation as a jurist, and in his eight years on the bench earned the support of all segments of the bar.

Judge Chen was nominated by President Obama to the U.S. District Court on August 6, 2009. He was given the highest rating of “well qualified” by the American Bar Association.  His nomination received bipartisan support as well as endorsements from law enforcement and a diverse group of civil and criminal attorneys who have appeared before him.  His nomination was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee to the full Senate on October 15, 2009.