Protected: Chief Judge Kimberly Mueller

Chief United States District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller was appointed by President Barack Obama as a United States District Judge for the Eastern District of California on December 21, 2010. She assumed the role of Chief Judge on January 1, 2020, based on seniority. She is the first woman to serve the Eastern District as a District Judge. Prior to her appointment, Judge Mueller served as a Magistrate Judge in the Eastern District’s Sacramento Division, from March 2003 to December 2010.   

Judge Mueller currently serves on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Education Committee, and previously sat as a District Judge representative on the Circuit’s Conference Executive Committee. From 2015 to 2019, she served on the Board of the Federal Judicial Center.  Formerly, as a Magistrate Judge, she was a member of the Ninth Circuit’s ADR Committee, played a lead role in establishing the Eastern District’s pro bono panel of attorneys available for appointment in pro se cases and spearheaded the process to secure the District’s first dedicated ADR and Pro Bono Director.   

Judge Mueller was a member of the ad hoc committee convened after 9/11 by District Judge Frank C. Damrell, Jr. (ret.) to launch his visionary civics education program known as Operation Protect & Defend, and she has remained active in OPD since.  She is a member of the Power of Democracy Committee that advises the Chief Justice of California on civics education initiatives, and co-founder of The Justice Anthony M. Kennedy Library and Learning Center, located since March 2013 in the Ninth Circuit Library at Sacramento’s Robert T. Matsui U.S. Courthouse.   

Judge Mueller has taught as an adjunct professor at UC Davis School of Law and McGeorge Law School. Her classes have included an early survey course on cyberlaw, as well as copyright and federal courts. 

Prior to appointment as a judge, Judge Mueller was in private practice in Sacramento, specializing in intellectual property litigation. Before becoming a lawyer, she served on the Sacramento City Council from 1987 to 1992, representing District 6. 

Judge Mueller received her BA cum laude from Pomona College in 1981 and her juris doctorate from Stanford Law School in 1995. She maintains her chambers in Sacramento.