Honorable Holly A. Thomas

The Honorable Holly A. Thomas is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Judge Thomas was nominated for the judgeship on September 20, 2021, and confirmed by the Senate on January 20, 2022. She received her judicial commission on January 24, 2022.

Judge Thomas previously served as a trial judge on the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles (2018-2022), as judge pro tem on the California Second District Court of Appeal (2022), as deputy director of executive programs at the California Civil Rights Department (2016-2018), as special counsel to the solicitor general at the New York State Attorney General’s Office (2015-2016), as senior attorney in the Appellate Section of the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice (2010-2015), and as assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (2005-2010), where she was also an Arthur Liman Fellow (2005-2006). Judge Thomas served as a law clerk for the Honorable Kim McLane Wardlaw on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (2004-2005).

Judge Thomas received her bachelor’s degree, with honors and distinction, in political science and African and African American studies from Stanford University in 2000; and her Juris Doctor in 2004 from Yale Law School, where she was an essays editor of the Yale Law Journal.