California governor Jerry Brown on Monday announced the appointment of Somnath Raj Chatterjee to the Alameda County Superior Court bench.
California governor Jerry Brown on Monday announced the appointment of Somnath Raj Chatterjee to the Alameda County Superior Court bench.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Diya TV) — California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday appointed Somnath Raj Chatterjee to a judgeship on the Alameda County Superior Court.
The 47-year-old East Bay resident has served as a partner at the Antolin Agarwal and Chatterjee LLP law firm since 2017, before a decade-long tenure at Morrison and Foerster LLP, where he was also a partner from 2006 through 2017. Chatterjee additionally spent one year in 1999 serving at the Contra Costa County Public Defender’s Office.
At Morrison and Foerster, Chatterjee was part of a team that successfully defended Oakland in 2012 from a federal crackdown on the usage of medical marijuana in the city. He’s also represented clients that sued the FBI in 2010 when the federal agency failed to respond to requests for documents related to its surveillance of Bay Area Muslim groups. Chatterjee was also part of the defense team of John Walker Lindh, a Marin County native who pleaded guilty in 2002 to aiding the Taliban.
He began his legal career as a clerk for the Honorable A. Andrew Hauk at the U.S. District Court, Central District of California, from 1994 to 1995, after earning his juris doctor from the Hastings College of the Law.
Chatterjee’s appointment was just part of a larger announcement of such additions from the governor’s office on Monday — Brown also named two new judges to the Contra Costa County bench, one in Santa Cruz County, and nine new judges in Los Angeles County.
Chatterjee, a Democrat, will draw an annual salary of $191,612.
