Calif.’s Central District Gets New Judge Ratified

(CN) - The Senate has confirmed by voice vote the nomination of U.S. Magistrate Judge Fernando Olguin to serve as a district judge for the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Olguin, nominated by President Barack Obama May 14, 2012, had his nomination hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 27. He fills a vacancy left by U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Nguyen who now serves with the 9th Circuit.

The Los Angeles native received his undergraduate degree with honors from Harvard University in 1985. He earned his master's degree and juris doctor in 1989 from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.

Olguin, 51, began his law career that same year when he began serving as a clerk for U.S. District Judge Carl Muecke in Arizona.

He served in that capacity until 1991 when he began working as a trial attorney for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. He held the position of national director of the Education Program for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund from 1994 to 1995.

For the next six years, he worked in private practice as a partner in the Pasadena law firm of Traber, Voorhees & Olguin. He has served as a magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California since 2001.

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California is one of the busiest federal trial courts in the nation, reporting 16,438 cases in 2011.

Olguin will earn an annual salary of $174,000.

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