Nathanael Cousins


Nathanael Cousins is currently a U.S. Magistrate Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Education

Judge Cousins graduated from Stanford University in 1992, where he received a degree in political science, and obtained his Juris Doctor degree from University of California Hastings College of the Law in 1995, where he was an editor on the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly and earned membership in the Order of the Coif. Judge Cousins has also studied abroad at Novosibirsk University in Russia and the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

Career

Upon graduation from law school, Judge Cousins started his career as an Associate focusing on civil litigation at the Los Angeles office of Greenberg Glusker.

Clerkship

After working at Greenberg and Glusker, Judge Cousins served as a federal judicial law clerk for the Honorable F.A. Little Jr., then Chief U.S. District Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Law Firm Private Practice

After his clerkship, Judge Cousins joined the Chicago office of Kirkland & Ellis as an Associate and then became Partner after practicing at the firm for over six years. While in private practice, he focused on both civil and criminal litigation in the areas of civil rights, antitrust law, class actions, securities fraud, and consumer fraud. He also served as a pro bono class counsel for inmates in an Illinois state prison.

Department of Justice

Upon completing his work in private practice, Judge Cousins then joined the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice as an Antitrust Division Trial Attorney, where he prosecuted criminal antitrust cases for five years.
After his work with the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division, Judge Cousins joined the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California in 2008 as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the San Jose and San Francisco divisions.
In both of the above positions, Judge Cousins led criminal jury trials before many of the Judges of the Northern District of California and was also part of the legal team that prosecuted global price-fixing cartels in semiconductor memory chip markets. He also coordinated Operation Ceasefire, a community program designed to reduce gang violence in Monterey County, California.

Judicial Service

Judge Cousins was appointed on July 5, 2011. He assumed the vacant seat left by retiring U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernard Zimmerman.
Judge Cousins also has his chambers in San Jose but has served in each and every courthouse in the Northern District of California, from Eureka to Salinas. He has also taught antitrust, legal writing and appellate advocacy at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, his alma mater, and regularly participates in moot court and trial training programs at various law schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. He additionally coaches basketball and soccer.

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