President Obama has nominated former San Francisco federal prosecutor, Haywood Gilliam, to a federal judgeship on the Northern District bench.
Gilliam, currently a white collar criminal defense specialist at Covington & Burling in San Francisco, served as an assistant U.S. attorney from 1999 to 2006. During that period he was chief of the securities fraud section from 2005 to 2006.
During his tenure as a prosecutor, Gilliam was founding member of the district’s Stock Options Backdating Task Force, where he investigated and prosecuted corporate officials accused of manipulating stock option grants.
Prior to Covington, Gilliam was a partner at Bingham McCutchen from 2006 to 2009.
If confirmed, Gilliam would fill the vacancy created in Judge Claudia Wilken, who announced she will move to senior status at the end of the year. Senior judge is considered a semi-retired status and allows judges to work at a reduced caseload and opens their position for appointment of a replacement.
In 1994, he served as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson in San Francisco and would become one of Henderson’s colleagues on the bench, if his is confirmed.
Gilliam received a law degree from StanfordLawSchool and his undergraduate degree from YaleUniversity.
He won the Thomas Atkins Civil Rights Award from the San Francisco NAACP in 1998 and is a longtime board member of the Wiley Manuel Law Foundation in Oakland.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif, recommended Gilliam for the appointment.
TrialInsider.com 