Judge Jia M. Cobb was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in November 2021.  She received a B.A., magna cum laude, from Northwestern University.  She then received a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where she also served as Coordinating Editor of the Harvard Law Review.

After law school, Judge Cobb clerked for the Honorable Diane P. Wood on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.  Following her clerkship, she worked as a trial attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS) from 2006 to 2012.  At PDS, Judge Cobb supervised incoming attorneys and was a member of the Forensic Practice Group.  In 2012, Judge Cobb joined Relman Colfax PLLC, a national plaintiff-side civil rights firm based in Washington, D.C.  At Relman Colfax, Judge Cobb handled a variety of complex civil rights litigation matters, including those involving allegations of housing discrimination, employment discrimination, and police misconduct.  She was a partner at Relman Colfax from 2019 until her appointment to the bench.

Judge Cobb has taught trial advocacy as an adjunct professor at American University Washington College of Law and as a visiting faculty member at Harvard Law School's Trial Advocacy Workshop.  She previously served as an elected member of the District of Columbia Bar’s Criminal Law and Individual Rights Section Steering Committee.