Indian American Attorney to be considered for New York’s Eastern District Federal Bench

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Diane Gujarati, the Indian-American deputy chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney Office for the Southern District in New York, is being considered by President Donald Trump for the state’s Eastern District federal bench.

Gujarati was nominated to the bench while President Barack Obama was still in office, but her confirmation remained pending when Trump was elected.

Trump is considering several nominees to fill nine New York federal bench vacancies as the Eastern District has four, with three in the Brooklyn courthouse and one in the Central Islip court.

According to a New York Law Journal report, last month Trump sent a list that included Gujarati’s name, to Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y, and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. to get the ball rolling, though the White House has not formally announced any nominees,.

Gujarati started off her career in law clerking for the Judge John M. Walker, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1995. She worked in the private sector after that, as an associate in the New York office of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP until 1999.

In 2012, she joined as an assistant in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York U.S. in the Criminal Division before being made deputy chief of the criminal division.

She previously served as the deputy chief of the White Plains Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and was then promoted to chief. She also served as deputy chief of the Appeals Unit in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York from 2006 to 2008.

Gujarati also serves on the Board of Directors for the Asian American Bar Association of New York of which she has been a member since 2013, volunteering on its women and judiciary committees.

Gujarati earned her J.D. from Yale Law School and graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College at Columbia University in 1990.