Shalina D. Kumar
President Joe Biden nominated Indian American circuit court chief judge Shalina D. Kumar as a federal judge for the Eastern District of Michigan, the White House announced on June 30.
Shalina has served on the Oakland County Sixth Circuit Court since 2007. She was appointed Chief Judge of the Circuit Court by the Michigan Supreme Court in January of 2018.
Kumar would be the first federal judge of South Asian descent in Michigan, the White House said.
Prior to taking the bench, Kumar was a civil litigator in private practice from 1997 to 2007. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1993 and the University of Detroit-Mercy School of Law in 1996.
Biden also nominated Jennifer Sung to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Sung is a member of the Oregon Employment Relations Board, a former union organizer, and labor lawyer. She would be the first AAPI judge from Oregon on the Ninth Circuit if confirmed.
Sung worked in private practice in Portland and San Francisco. She received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 2004 and lives in Portland.