Norton’s Final 113th Congress Recommendation for D.C. District Court Judge, Amit Mehta, Confirmed by Senate Judiciary Committee

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) announced that Norton's recommendation for judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, her last to President Obama for this Congress, Amit Mehta, was confirmed today by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mehta, who would be the first Asian Pacific American judge on the court, was recommended by the Congresswoman to President Obama. Mehta is currently a partner in the law firm Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, where he has been recognized by several legal publications for his exemplary work, including Super Lawyers, The National Law Journal, and Benchmark Litigation.

"I will work hard to get Amit Mehta confirmed as district court judge during the lame-duck session," Norton said. "Our recommendations have been so highly qualified that they have been nominated by the President. We are now going for a clean sweep – all nominated, all confirmed. Given Amit Mehta's exceptional qualifications, only the clock can stop us now.

Mehta is a graduate of Georgetown University, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and the University of Virginia School of Law, Order of the Coif. He clerked for Judge Susan Graber, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. After clerking, Mr. Mehta worked at Zuckerman Spaeder as an associate for three years, and then worked for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS) for five years. At PDS, he represented indigent criminal defendants in trials, appeals and administrative proceedings. He later rejoined Zuckerman Spaeder, where he has represented companies and individuals in a broad range of federal criminal matters, including bribery, political corruption, mail and wire fraud, export control and sanctions violations, and environmental crimes. He also has represented plaintiffs and defendants in federal civil matters, including antitrust and a Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement action. In a pro bono capacity, he has devoted more than 450 hours since 2010 to post-conviction proceedings for an individual convicted of murder. He is also vice president of the board of directors of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project. Mehta was born in India and moved with his family to the U.S. at the age of one.

President Obama, like President Clinton, granted Norton senatorial courtesy to recommend candidates for federal district court judges and other important federal law enforcement officials in the District. The Congresswoman recommended Mehta from a number of candidates screened by her Federal Law Enforcement Nominating Commission, chaired by Pauline Schneider, a special counsel at Ballard Spahr LLP and a former president of the D.C. Bar. President Obama has nominated and the Senate has confirmed all nine of Norton's other recommendations for district court judges – Ketanji Brown Jackson, Amy Berman Jackson, James E. Boasberg, Rudolph Contreras, Beryl A. Howell, Casey Cooper, Tanya Chutkan, Randolph Moss, and Robert Wilkins, who was the first of Norton's recommendations to President Obama for a vacancy on the district court. He is her first judicial recommendation to be promoted to the U.S. Court of Appeals.