Vaughn R. Walker is a federal judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. He became a member of the court in 1989. He has been the Chief Judge of the court since 2004.
Judge Walker was a longtime business lawyer in San Francisco. Among his rulings, he has required law firms to bid for the status of lead counsel in securities class-action suits. His rulings have overturned San Francisco's voter-approved limits on bank ATM fees, dismissed a slave-labor suit against Japanese companies by former World War II prisoners of war and allowed reporters to watch all stages of lethal injection executions.
