Hemant H. (Shashi) Kewalramani Appointed as United States Magistrate Judge for the Central District of California

The United States District Court for the Central District of California announces the appointment of Hemant H. (Shashi) Kewalramani as a United States Magistrate Judge.  Judge Kewalramani, who was sworn in on August 10, 2017, will sit in Riverside, the Court's Eastern Division.  Judge Kewalramani succeeds former Magistrate Judge David T. Bristow.

Upon graduating from law school, he served as a law clerk to the then-Chief U.S. District Judge Richard A. Schell of the Eastern District of Texas.  In 1997, he joined one of the nation's largest intellectual property boutiques where his practice focused on patent litigation.  In 2003, he joined the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California ("USAO") as part of the Computer Hacking & IP theft unit in Silicon Valley and, in 2008, transferred to the USAO for the Central District of California.  After leaving the USAO, he formed a firm with former colleagues and, in 2015, opened his own firm, focusing on patent litigation, federal criminal defense, and investigations by federal and state agencies.  He served for many years as a member of the Court's CJA Panel for the Southern (Santa Ana) and Eastern (Riverside) divisions.

Judge Kewalramani is a board member of the Inland Empire Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, the Orange County Constitutional Rights Foundation, and the Orange County Bar Association Charitable Fund.  Prior to joining the Court, he also assisted in coaching high school students for mock trial competitions and handled a variety of pro bono matters as a part of his practice.  He has been rated as a Super Lawyer since 2015 in white collar criminal litigation.

Judge Kewalramani earned his J.D. in 1996 from the Baylor University School of Law, cum laude, where he was an editor on the Law Review.  In 1993, he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. in Aerospace   Engineering. 

Including the position now occupied by Judge Kewalramani, the Central District of California has 24 authorized full-time Magistrate Judges and one part-time position.  The Central District of California is comprised of the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.  It serves approximately 19.6 million people – nearly half the population of the State of California.

KIRY K. GRAY
DISTRICT COURT EXECUTIVE / CLERK OF COURT