The United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania is pleased to announce the appointment of Christopher B. Brown as a United States Magistrate Judge, resident in its Pittsburgh Division. Mr. Brown will enter on duty on June 10, 2024. Mr. Brown fills the vacancy resulting from the recent retirement of Judge Cynthia Reed Eddy.

United States Magistrate Judges are appointed by the Court’s District Judges, and pursuant to federal law, preside over a wide range of proceedings on the Court’s civil and criminal dockets, and broadly participate in the full range of the Court’s activities and responsibilities.

Mr. Brown was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is the youngest of four children. He is a graduate of the University of Richmond and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Following law school, Mr. Brown remained in Pittsburgh where he and his wife established roots and started a family.

Mr. Brown began his legal career at the Allegheny County Public Defender’s Office where he worked as an Assistant Public Defender in its pretrial, juvenile, and trial divisions. In 2005, he joined the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania as a Research and Writing Attorney and later as an Assistant Federal Public Defender. As a trial lawyer, he appeared regularly in all three divisions in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania – Erie, Pittsburgh, and Johnstown – and has represented thousands of individuals charged with criminal offenses in both state and federal court throughout his career.

Outside of the courtroom Mr. Brown has been a member of the Allegheny County Bar Association and an active participant of the Federal Court Section Council and the Federal Criminal Subcommittee.  Additionally, Mr. Brown was a co-chair of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania’s Criminal Rules Subcommittee.

The Court welcomes Mr. Brown to federal judicial service, and to the Court’s work as it serves the approximately 3 million residents of the 25 counties that make up the Western District of Pennsylvania.