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CHIEF JUDGE, U.S. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, NORFOLK
CHIEF JUDGE, U.S. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA, NORFOLK
Virginia Business// August 29, 2022//
In the late 1970s, Davis, then a high school junior, took a summer job working for the Portsmouth commonwealth’s attorney’s office’s victim witness assistance program. He knew then that he wanted to pursue a career in law.
Davis earned a bachelor’s degree in American government from the University of Virginia and a law degree from Washington and Lee University, then spent nearly two years clerking for a U.S. District judge. When his clerkship ended in 1989, Davis entered the field as a private attorney.
Davis’ specialty was maritime law, and he was known for representing the company that won salvage rights to the Titanic. He became a partner at Carr & Porter LLC in 1998, then left that partnership in 2003 to serve as a judge on the state’s 3rd Judicial Circuit. Within three years he was a chief judge, and in 2007, President George W. Bush nominated him to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Davis became its chief judge in 2018.
“I guess I’m passionate about the government working properly,” Davis told The Virginian-Pilot. “Democracy — and our republic — is a great thing that we’ve been entrusted with.”
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