A Conversation with U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Calabretta: Challenges Facing the Federal Judiciary

U.S. District Judge Daniel Calabretta will be visiting Chicago-Kent on October 6, 2025. He will sit down for a moderated discussion and a Q&A session with students and faculty about the challenges facing the federal judiciary today.

Judge Calabretta was appointed as a United States District Judge for the Eastern District of California on February 22, 2024. Prior to his appointment, Judge Calabretta served as a California Superior Court Judge in Sacramento County where he was assigned to the Juvenile Court, including as Presiding Judge of the Juvenile Court. Prior to his appointment to the state bench, Judge Calabretta served as a Deputy Legal Affairs Secretary for Governor Brown, a Deputy Attorney General for the California Department of Justice, and as an associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP. Judge Calabretta currently teaches at the University of California, Davis School of Law and Lincoln Law School of Sacramento.

Born in Tennessee and raised in New Jersey, Judge Calabretta graduated with his B.A. from Princeton University and earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. Following law school, he served as a law clerk for the Honorable William A. Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States.