Ghanaian nominated by Joe Biden as District Court of California judge

• When confirmed, she will be the first Black to hold such a high judicial position

• Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong was born to Kwaku Ewusi-Mensah and Theodora Ewusi-Mensah

Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, a Ghanaian American, has been nominated as a judge by the US President, Joe Biden to the US District Court for the Central District of California.

Born to Kwaku Ewusi-Mensah and Theodora Ewusi-Mensah both immigrants from Ghana, Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong was born and raised in Los Angeles County, California in 1975.

Frimpong earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1997. According to trellis.law, after graduating from Harvard, Frimpong worked as a high school teacher at a public school in Ghana. After she returned to the United States, she attended Yale Law School where she earned her J.D. in 2001.

If confirmed, Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong will hold a seat on the US District Court for the Central District of California as a lifetime appointment in the upper echelons of the US judiciary.

She would also become the only black woman serving in any of California’s four Federal District Courts and one of only eight across the whole of the United States.

Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong’s career

Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong clerked for the Hon. Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. District Court Justice for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals from 2001 to 2002.

She then joined the San Francisco law firm of Morrison and Foerster LLP as an associate. During her five years with the firm, Frimpong practiced civil and intellectual property litigation.

From 2007 to 2015, Frimpong left California to join the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., where she worked as a trial attorney for two years. During her time as an attorney for the DOJ, she handled cases involving government contracts, government personnel, and international trade disputes.

Frimpong then became counsel to the-U.S. Assistant Attorney General Tony West with the Civil Division of the DOJ in 2009. While in that capacity, Frimpong served as an advisor to the former U.S. Assistant A.G. in the matters of intellectual property, immigration, international trade, consumer protection, and international law. She remained there until 2011 when she would serve as the deputy assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Consumer Protection Branch.

Then, in 2014, after briefly serving as principal deputy associate Attorney General, Frimpong became counsel to then-U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. where she served as an advisor in matters involving national security, financial fraud, intellectual property, tax, immigration, and all other issues that fell under the scope of the DOJ.

Frimpong left the Department of Justice in 2015 to join The Millennium Challenge Corporation in Washington, D.C., a foreign aid agency run by the United States government.

She served first as a corporate secretary, then as general counsel, before ultimately becoming Vice President. She was serving in that capacity at the time of her appointment to the Superior Court in 2016.

Throughout her legal career, Judge Frimpong has sought to provide pro bono legal assistance to low-income individuals through various outreach entities.