APABA-SV applauds President Obama's ongoing commitment to appointment of well-qualified and diverse candidates to the federal bench. APABA-SV also applauds the U.S. Senate's recent confirmation of three such distinguished jurists.

On April 30, 2014, U.S. Senate confirmed Manish Suresh Shah to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Before joining the bench, Judge Shah worked at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois since 2001. There he served as the chief of Criminal Appeals, and more recently as chief of the Criminal Division. Judge Shah attended the University of Chicago Law School and clerked for Judge James B. Zagel of the Northern District of Illinois. He will be the first person of South Asian descent to serve as an Article III judge in the state of Illinois and in the Seventh Circuit.

Theodore Chuang was confirmed to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland on May 1, 2014. Before his service on the bench, Judge Chuang served as Deputy General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He also previously served as the Chief Investigative Counsel for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Deputy Chief Investigative Counsel for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Prior to that, Chuang served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Massachusetts and as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. With his confirmation, Judge Chuang becomes the first Asian Pacific American judge in the federal judiciary in the state of Maryland and in the Fourth Circuit.

Indira Talwani was confirmed to the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts on May 8th, 2014. Prior to her confirmation, Judge Talwani was partner at the Massachusetts law firm of Segal Roitman and the San Francisco law firm of Altshuler Berzon LLP. Judge Talwani previously clerked for the Honorable Stanley A. Weigel on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Judge Talwani received her J.D. from the University of California Berkeley School of Law and B.A. from Harvard/Radcliffe College. Judge Talwani will be the first person of Asian descent to serve as a federal judge in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the first person of Asian descent to serve as an Article III judge in the First Circuit, and only the second female Article III judge of South Asian descent nationwide.