SACRAMENTO, Calif. —Phillip A. Talbert was sworn in today as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California. Mr. Talbert was nominated by President Joseph R. Biden on April 25, 2022, and confirmed by the United States Senate on June 23, 2022.
The Eastern District of California is the largest federal district geographically in California and home to over 8 million residents living in 34 counties. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has over 180 personnel with its headquarters in Sacramento and offices in Fresno and Bakersfield.
“I am deeply honored to have been selected to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office where I have served as a career prosecutor the majority of my legal career. I am humbled to have the support and confidence of President Biden and my two home state Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla. I pledge to serve the Eastern District of California by seeking justice in all of our criminal and civil matters. I am honored to lead the committed public servants in this outstanding office. I look forward to working with them and our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners to keep our communities safe and to represent the United States with the highest quality legal representation,” said Mr. Talbert.
On March 1, 2021, Mr. Talbert assumed leadership of the office as Acting U.S. Attorney. Mr. Talbert has served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in this district for 19 years, first in the Narcotics and Violent Crime Unit in Sacramento where he prosecuted drug trafficking cases, then as the Chief of Appeals and Training in which he supervised the office’s appellate practice and trained incoming Criminal Division Assistant U.S. Attorneys, and then as the First Assistant U.S. Attorney under U.S. Attorneys appointed in two different administrations. He led the office for almost two years as the Acting and Interim U.S. Attorney in 2016-2017. Mr. Talbert also taught professional responsibility for four years as an adjunct professor at the U.C. Davis School of Law.
Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. Talbert worked as a Trial Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., where he prosecuted a variety of federal criminal cases after being hired in the Attorney General’s Honors Program; as an Associate at the law firm of Stoel Rives LLP in Seattle, Washington, in the firm’s Litigation Department and White Collar Defense Practice Group; and as an Assistant Counsel and Associate Counsel at the Office of Professional Responsibility of the U.S. Department of Justice where he investigated claims of prosecutorial misconduct and other allegations made against Department of Justice attorneys. He also served as a law clerk to the Honorable David R. Thompson (deceased), Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Mr. Talbert received his Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude in Economics, from Harvard University; his Master of Economics from the University of Sydney, Australia, which he attended on a Rotary Foundation Scholarship; and his Juris Doctor from the UCLA School of Law where he was the Chief Articles Editor for the UCLA Law Review.