Christopher Klein

Chief Judge

Christopher M. Klein is the Chief Judge of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of California. He earned JD and MBA degrees at the University of Chicago, where he was Executive Editor of Law Review, and BA and MA degrees at Brown. He is admitted to the bar in California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, and Massachusetts. After completing service in the U.S. Marine Corps as an artillery officer in Vietnam and judge advocate, he was a trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice, in private practice with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, and Deputy General Counsel-Litigation of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. In 1988 he was appointed a United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Eastern District of California. He was appointed to the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel in 1998 and served for ten years. From 2000-2007, Judge Klein was a member of Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules of the Judicial Conference of the United States and the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Evidence. His bankruptcy-related publications include: Principles of Preclusion and Estoppel in Bankruptcy Cases, 79 Am. Bankr. L.J. 839 (2005) (co-author); Bankruptcy Rules Made Easy(2001): A Guide to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that Apply in Bankruptcy, 75 Am. Bankr. L.J. 35 (2001).