The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Cindy Chung as a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Monday.
Chung has served as the U.S. Attorney for western Pennsylvania since November 2021. She will be the first Asian American to serve as a judge on that court.
President Joe Biden announced her nomination last July.
Before serving as the top federal law enforcement officer in western Pennsylvania, she had worked as an assistant U.S. Attorney based in Pittsburgh for seven years.
After graduating from Columbia Law School in 2002, Chung clerked for U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson in Alabama. She then joined the District Attorney’s Office in New York City before becoming a civil rights trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice.
“She has a very distinguished record,” University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias told WESA last summer. Beyond her tenure in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he noted, “she's got some civil rights experience, which is great to have on the federal bench. And … the New York District Attorney’s office … is a really high-powered office.”
The 3rd Circuit Court handles appeals from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and the Virgin Islands.
