Judge Bios

Judge James E. (“Jeb”) Boasberg is a native Washingtonian, having graduated from St. Albans School in 1981. He received a B.A. degree, magna cum laude, in History in 1985 from Yale College, where he also played basketball. Judge Boasberg then received an M.St. in Modern European History from Oxford University in 1986 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1990.

Upon graduation from law school, Judge Boasberg served as a law clerk to the Honorable Dorothy W. Nelson on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Following his clerkship, he was a litigation associate at Keker & Van Nest in San Francisco from 1991 to 1994 and at Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd & Evans in Washington from 1995 to 1996. In private practice, his concentration was in civil litigation, particularly First Amendment defamation law, on which subject he has published several articles.

In December 1996, Judge Boasberg joined the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia as an Assistant United States Attorney. In his 5_ years there, he served in various sections in the office and tried over 40 felony cases to juries in both the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. As an AUSA, Judge Boasberg specialized in homicide cases and prosecuted a number of high-profile matters, including the Gallaudet slayings and the National Zoo shootings.

In May 2002, President George W. Bush nominated Judge Boasberg to be an Associate Judge of the District of Columbia Superior Court, and he was sworn in on September 3, 2002. He was assigned to the Civil II calendar from that date through the end of 2004. As of January 2005, he has been assigned to the Misdemeanors calendar. He also served as an adjunct faculty member at the George Washington Law School in 2003, where he taught a seminar on homicide and advanced criminal procedure.

Judge Boasberg is married to Elizabeth Manson. They have three young children.