Lucy Koh

Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Maryland, Mississippi, and Oklahoma, Koh graduated from Norman High School in 1986. She was an officer of her high school's chapter of the National Honor Society. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College in Social Studies in 1990 and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1993.[3][4][5]

From 1993 until 1994, Koh worked for the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary as a Women's Law and Public Policy Fellow. From 1994 until 1997, Koh worked for the United States Department of Justice, first as a Special Counsel in the Office of Legislative Affairs (1994–1996) and then as a Special Assistant to the United States Deputy Attorney General (1996–1997).[6] From 1997 until 2000, Koh served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Office of the United States Attorney for the Central District of California. From 2000 until 2002, she worked as a Senior Associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a Palo Alto, California law firm. From 2002 until 2008, Koh worked as a litigation partner at the Silicon Valley office of the law firm McDermott Will & Emery representing technology companies in patent, trade secret and commercial civil matters.[7] In January 2008, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Koh a judge on the Santa Clara County Superior Court, a position she held until becoming a U.S. District Judge in 2010.[6][5]

On January 20, 2010, President Barack Obama nominated Koh on the recommendation of California Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein to a seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California vacated by judge Ronald M. Whyte, who assumed senior status in 2009.[4] On March 4, 2010, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to move her nomination to the full Senate.[8] The Senate confirmed Koh in a 90–0 vote on June 7, 2010.[9] She received her commission on June 9, 2010.[5]

On February 25, 2016, President Obama nominated Koh to serve as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, to the seat vacated by Judge Harry Pregerson, who took senior status on December 11, 2015.[10][11] On July 13, 2016 a hearing on her nomination was held before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary.[12] On September 15, 2016 her nomination was reported out of committee by a vote of 13–7. Her nomination expired on January 3, 2017, with the end of the 114th Congress.[5] President Donald Trump would later appoint Daniel P. Collins to the same seat in 2019.[13]

Koh has presided over notable litigation, including Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, and multidistrict litigation, including the Yahoo and Anthem data breaches and Apple and Google privacy litigation.

In 2020, Koh presided over a case in which a coalition of local governments, activist groups, and American Indian tribes sued the commerce department over early completion of the 2020 census.[14] She issued a ruling that ultimately resulted in extending the once-a-decade count from September 30 to October 15.[15][16]

Koh is married to California Supreme Court Justice and Stanford law professor Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar.[17] They have two children.[18]

• Hillary Clinton Supreme Court candidates

• Lucy Koh at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
• Lucy H. Koh at Ballotpedia