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The 2023 Judges’ Reception Honoree: Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler

United States Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler was appointed in 2010 to the Northern District of California. She has presided as a trial and settlement judge over hundreds of civil cases, including intellectual-property, employment, civil-rights, and commercial disputes.

Before joining the court, Judge Beeler was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District, prosecuting complex white-collar cases with parallel civil components. She was the Office’s Professional Responsibility Officer and Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. She was a law clerk to the Honorable Cecil F. Poole, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She trained as a mediator with the Northern District’s ADR Program, the Federal Judicial Center, and Harvard Law School.

Judge Beeler is a member of the Ninth Circuit Conference Executive Committee. She is one of four judges on the U.S. Department of Justice/Office of Defender Services Joint Electronic Technology Working Group. She chairs the Northern District’s Criminal Practice Committee, implemented the court’s reentry and diversion courts, and, with United States District Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr., implemented and facilitates the court’s Racial Justice Working Group.

Judge Beeler was President of the Federal Bar Association for the Northern District, co-chair of the Lawyer Representatives to the Ninth Circuit, a board member of the Bar Association of San Francisco (BASF), and a member of the Ninth Circuit’s Jury Trial Improvement Committee. She is a member of BASF’s Criminal Justice Task Force and the Executive Committee of the Edward J. McFetridge American Inn of Court. Judge Beeler was named one of The Recorder’s 2012 Women Leaders in Law and received the Northern District Judicial Conference’s Public Service Award, BASF’s Barristers Choice Award, the Federal Bar Association’s Inaugural Chapter Achievement award, and the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association’s 2018 Federal Judge of the Year award.

Judge Beeler taught Civil Trial Practice at U.C. Berkeley School of Law and Criminal Procedure at U.C. Hastings College of the Law. She has led rule-of-law projects in Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Jordan, Ukraine, Turkey, Thailand, and the Philippines.

Judge Beeler graduated with honors from the University of Washington School of Law, where she was Order of the Coif and an Articles Editor on the Washington Law Review. She received her A.B. with honors from Bowdoin College.