The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) and the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC) applauded February 24 the decision of President Barack Obama to nominate University of California Berkeley School of Law Associate Dean and Professor Goodwin H. Liu to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Professor Liu joins Judge Denny Chin, nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals to the Second Circuit, as the second Asian Pacific American federal appellate court nomination by the President. Currently, there are no Asian Pacific American judges among the approximately 175 active federal appellate court jurists nationwide.
A distinguished graduate of Stanford University, Oxford University, and Yale Law School, Professor Liu is a Rhodes Scholar, a former Supreme Court clerk, and a member of the American Law Institute. He has worked as a corporate litigator and as a key policy advisor in two federal agencies. In 2003, Professor Liu returned to his home state of California to join the faculty of UC Berkeley School of Law, one of the nation's top law schools, and earned tenure and promotion to Associate Dean in five years. (Source: Asian American Justice Center, Feb 24, 2010).