Lauck named chief judge of Eastern District court

Judge M. Hannah Lauck has been tapped to serve as chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the federal court announced in a Dec. 3 press release.

Lauck, who was nominated to the court in 2013 by President Barack Obama, succeeded former Chief Judge Mark S. Davis on Dec. 4, when Davis’ seven-year term as chief judge concluded.

As chief judge, Lauck’s chambers will remain in Richmond, but she will preside over federal district courts in Alexandria, Richmond, Norfolk and Newport News.

A Falls Church native, Lauck is a graduate of Wellesley College and Yale Law School. Following law school, she clerked for Judge James R. Spencer, who later became chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Lauck worked in private practice in Washington, D.C. before serving as an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Richmond division, where she acted as both a criminal and civil assistant U.S. attorney.

After another stint in private practice, Lauck was appointed as a U.S. magistrate judge in the Richmond division of the Eastern District of Virginia in 2005. She became the first woman federal judge appointed to the Richmond division.

Lauck’s nomination to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia was unanimously confirmed in June 2014.