Biden Nominates Federal Prosecutor Sarala Vidya Nagala to the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut
- She began her legal career as a law clerk for Judge Susan Graber on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
President Joe Biden has nominated Indian American federal prosecutor Sarala Vidya Nagala to the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. If confirmed, Nagala would be the first judge of South Asian descent to serve on the District Court for the District of Connecticut.
She is currently the deputy chief of the Major Crimes Unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Connecticut, a role she has held since 2017. Nagala joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2012 and has served in leadership roles in the office, including as Hate Crimes Coordinator. Previously, she was an associate at Munger, Tolles, & Olson in San Francisco, California from 2009 to 2012.
She began her legal career as a law clerk for Judge Susan Graber on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 2008 to 2009. Nagala received her J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law in 2008 and her B.A. from Stanford University in 2005.
Nagala was nominated along with two other lawyers to fill three vacant federal judgeships in Connecticut — Omar A. Williams, a state Superior Court Judge; and Sarah A. L. Merriam, a U.S. Magistrate Judge in Connecticut.
“Three open federal judgeships is unusual in a small state like Connecticut,” reported the Hartford Courant. The state is allocated eight federal judgeships, which are lifetime appointments, the paper said. “The judges work with extensive staffs at courthouses in Hartford, Bridgeport, and New Haven and preside over cases involving complex business disputes and sophisticated crime such as interstate fraud, racketeering, and political corruption. Seven semi-retired, or senior federal judges continue to work in the state.”