Denny Chin

Judge Denny Chin has served as a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit since 2010. He had previously served, for sixteen years, as a United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. He graduated from Princeton University magna cum laude and Fordham Law School, where he was managing editor of the Law Review. He clerked for the Honorable Henry F. Werker in the Southern District of New York; was associated with the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell; served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; was a founding partner of the law firm Campbell, Patrick & Chin; and was a partner at a firm specializing in labor and employment law, Vladeck, Waldman & Engelhard, P.C.

Judge Chin was born in Hong Kong. He was the first Asian American appointed a United States District Judge outside the Ninth Circuit and the first Asian American appointed to the Second Circuit. Judge Chin and his wife Kathy Hirata Chin have written, produced, and presented, together with a team from the Asian American Bar Association of New York, a series of reenactments of historic cases involving Asian American litigants. He has taught Asian Americans and the Law at Fordham, Harvard, and Yale Law Schools. He is Co-Director of the Center on Asian Americans and the Law at Fordham Law School, where he is also the Lawrence W. Pierce Distinguished Jurist in Residence.