Judge Amir H. Ali was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on December 2, 2024.  Judge Ali received his Bachelor’s in Software Engineering from the University of Waterloo and his J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School.  

After law school, Judge Ali clerked for the Honorable Raymond C. Fisher of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for the Honorable Marshall Rothstein of the Supreme Court of Canada.  Following his clerkships, Judge Ali worked in the Washington, D.C. office of Jenner & Block LLP.  There, Judge Ali had an active pro bono practice and litigated complex commercial cases in a wide variety of areas.  In 2017, Judge Ali opened the Washington D.C. office of the MacArthur Justice Center, where he litigated civil rights cases at all levels of the federal judiciary and later served as the organization’s national Executive Director.

Judge Ali has taught courses on civil, criminal, and appellate litigation at Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, and the University of the District of Columbia David A Clarke School of Law.