Vince Girdhari Chhabria (born November 27, 1969) is an American lawyer and jurist who is a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district. Each district covers one U.S. state or a portion of a state. There is at least one feder ...

of the

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California The United States District Court for the Northern District of California (in case citations, N.D. Cal.) is the federal United States district court whose jurisdiction comprises the following counties of California: Alameda, Contra Costa, De ...

. He was appointed in 2014 by President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

. Chhabria was formerly a deputy city attorney at the

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

City Attorney's Office.

Early life and education

Chhabria was born in 1969 in

to a Sindhi immigrant father from

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and a

French Canadian French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French people, French colonists first arriving in Canada (New France), France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of ...

mother, born in

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. Chhabria graduated from the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of C ...

in 1991 with a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree in

politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

. From 1992 to 1995, he worked as a legislative assistant and campaign staffer for

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

Lynn Woolsey. He then attended the

UC Berkeley School of Law The University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Berkeley Law) is the Law school in the United States, law school of the University of California, Berkeley. The school was commonly referred to as "Boalt Hall" for many years, although it was ...

, graduating in 1998 with a

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

degree and

Order of the Coif The Order of the Coif () is an American honor society for law school graduates. The Order was founded in 1902 at the University of Illinois College of Law. The name is a reference to the ancient English order of trial lawyers, the serjeants-at-la ...

membership.

Career

He served as a

law clerk A law clerk, judicial clerk, or judicial assistant is a person, often a lawyer, who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by Legal research, researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial ...

to Judge

Charles Breyer Charles Roberts Breyer (born November 3, 1941) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Breyer served as chairman of the United States Sentencing Commission from 2018 t ...

of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, from 1998 to 1999. He clerked for Judge James R. Browning of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts for the following federal judicial districts: * Distric ...

, from 1999 to 2000. In 2001, he worked as an associate at the law firm of Keker & Van Nest, LLP. From 2001 to 2002, he clerked for Justice

Stephen Breyer Stephen Gerald Breyer ( ; born August 15, 1938) is an American lawyer and retired jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton, and r ...

of the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

. From 2002 to 2004, he worked as an associate at the law firm of

Covington & Burling Covington & Burling LLP is an American multinational law firm. Known as a white-shoe law firm, it is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and advises clients on transactional, litigation, regulatory, and public policy matters. The firm has addition ...

, LLP. From 2005 to 2013, he served in the San Francisco City Attorney's Office, finally as deputy city attorney for government litigation and as the co-chief of appellate litigation. Chhabria Sitting on Bench

Federal judicial service

On July 25, 2013, President

nominated Chhabria to serve as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, to the seat vacated by Judge

Susan Illston Susan Yvonne Illston (born June 24, 1948) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate in 1995. S ...

, who assumed senior status on July 1, 2013. On January 16, 2014, his nomination was reported out of committee by a 13–5 vote. On March 5, 2014, the

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

invoked cloture on his nomination by a 57–43 vote. His nomination was confirmed later that day by a 58–41 vote. He received his judicial commission on March 7, 2014. Chhabria was the first Indian-American judge to be appointed in California.

Notable rulings

On October 3, 2016, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation appointed Chhabria to preside over the coordinated and consolidated pretrial proceedings for all product liability lawsuits filed against

Monsanto The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best-known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed ...

in the federal court system, over failure to warn consumers and regulators that the glyphosate-based herbicide can cause

non-Hodgkin's lymphoma Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), also known as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is a group of blood cancers that includes all types of lymphomas except Hodgkin lymphomas. Symptoms include enlarged lymph nodes, fever, night sweats, weight loss, and tire ...

. In 2018, Chhabria was the judge in the case of ''IMDb.com, Inc. v. Becerra'', in which the website

IMDb IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...

sued parties including California Attorney General

Xavier Becerra Xavier Becerra (; born January 26, 1958) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 25th United States secretary of health and human services, a position he held from March 19, 2021 to January 20, 2025. He is the first Latino to h ...

and the

Screen Actors Guild The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...

, seeking to counter a California law that barred IMDb from posting the

birth date A birthday is the anniversary of the birth of a person or figuratively of an institution. Birthdays of people are celebrated in numerous cultures, often with birthday gifts, birthday cards, a birthday party, or a rite of passage. Many religion ...

s of actors. Chhabria ruled that the California law was unconstitutional under the

First Amendment to the United States Constitution The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents Federal government of the United States, Congress from making laws respecting an Establishment Clause, establishment of religion; prohibiting the Free Exercise Cla ...

. In 2022, Chhabria presided over the sentencing of Jose Inez Garcia Zarate, an illegal alien who was acquitted of the 2015 shooting death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco but pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and a person illegally in the country in possession of a firearm. Chhabria sentenced Zarate, who had been in Federal prison for seven years, to time served. In sentencing Zarate, Chhabria warned, “If you return to this country again and you are back in front of me, I will not spare you. Let this be your last warning: do not return to this country.” In 2025, Chhabria ruled in a 40-page decision that Meta's use of copyrighted books, by authors such as

Junot Diaz Junot is a French name that may refer to the following notable people: ;Given name *Junot Díaz (born 1968), Dominican American ;Surname *Laure Junot, Duchess of Abrantes (1784–1838), French writer *Jean-Andoche Junot Jean-Andoche Junot, Duke ...

Ta-Nehisi Coates Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates ( ; born September 30, 1975) is an American author, journalist, and activist. He gained a wide readership during his time as national correspondent at ''The Atlantic'', where he wrote about cultural, social, and political is ...

David Henry Hwang David Henry Hwang (born August 11, 1957) is an American playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and theater professor at Columbia University in New York City. He has won three Obie Awards for his plays '' FOB'', '' Golden Child'', and '' Yellow ...

Laura Lippman Laura Lippman (born January 31, 1959) is an American journalist and author of over 20 detective fiction novels. Her novels have won multiple awards, including an Agatha Award, seven Anthony Awards, two Barry Awards, an Edgar Award, a Gumshoe Aw ...

, and

Sarah Silverman Sarah Kate Silverman (born December 1, 1970) is an American stand-up comedian, actress, and writer. She first rose to prominence for her brief stint as a writer and cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series ''Saturday Night Live'' during its ...

, among others, to train its AI model, LLama AI, was protected under the

fair use Fair use is a Legal doctrine, doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to bal ...

doctrine in U.S. copyright law.https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/meta-wins-ai-copyright-case-over-sarah-silverman-junot-diaz/493848

References

External links