The Honorable Michael W. Fitzgerald United States District Judge Los Angeles, California

Michael W. Fitzgerald is a United States District Judge for the Central District of California. Judge Fitzgerald was appointed in 2012. As a district judge, he has presided over numerous civil and criminal trials. Judge Fitzgerald has served as the Chair of the district court’s Criminal Justice Act Committee and Attorney Liaison Committee. Currently, he is the 9t h Circuit representative to the Committee on Space and Facilities of the Judicial Conference of the United States. He also is the President of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. He has received the Daniel O’Connell Award from the Irish American Bar Association and the IP Vanguard Award (Judicial) from the California Lawyers Association.

Before his appointment, Judge Fitzgerald practiced for seventeen years at Corbin, Fitzgerald & Athey LLP and its predecessor firms. He focused his practice on federal and regulatory criminal cases and investigations. Judge Fitzgerald served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Los Angeles from 1988 to 1991, during which time he tried twenty cases, handled numerous appeals, and conducted large money laundering investigations.

Judge Fitzgerald clerked for the Honorable Irving R. Kaufman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In 1985, he graduated from the School of Law of the University of California at Berkeley (Berkeley Law), where he was elected to the Order of the Coif, served as Managing Editor of the Industrial Relations Law Journal (now the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law), and received the American Jurisprudence Award in Criminal Law. He received his undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Harvard University.