The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is pleased to welcome the Honorable Kelley Brisbon Hodge as a United States District Judge. Judge Hodge took the oath of office on December 28, 2022.
Judge Hodge was a partner in the Labor and Employment section of Fox Rothschild LLP in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Prior to joining Fox Rothschild LLP, Hodge was elected in 2017 to serve as the 25th District Attorney by the Board of Judges for the Court of Common Pleas for the First Judicial District.
Upon her election, Hodge became the first African American woman to lead the District Attorney’s office in its 167-year history and the first African American woman to lead a District Attorney’s Office in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Judge Hodge practiced law in the Commonwealths of Pennsylvania and Virginia, starting her legal career as a public defender in Richmond, Virginia in 1997 and then relocating to Philadelphia, PA where she joined the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office in 2004. Before becoming District Attorney, Hodge was the first independent Title IX coordinator at the University of Virginia. Additionally, during her career, she was appointed by two Pennsylvania Governors to serve on statewide commissions that focused on school safety, juvenile justice, and citizen’s review of law enforcement. Over her twenty-five years as an attorney, Hodge developed an extensive and comprehensive trial, litigation and compliance practice focusing on education law, criminal law, government policy advising, discrimination and civil rights.
Hodge earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Virginia in 1993 and her Juris Doctor from the University of Richmond School of Law in 1996. She has sat on numerous boards, has been recognized by various legal and professional entities and is an active member of several community-centered organizations.
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is pleased to welcome the Honorable John Frank Murphy as a United States District Judge. Judge Murphy took the oath of office on December 28, 2022.
Judge Murphy was a partner at Baker & Hostetler in Philadelphia. His practice focused on intellectual property disputes, including district court litigation through trial and appeal as well as disputes at the Patent Office and the International Trade Commission. Murphy began his legal career as a first-year summer associate at Woodcock Washburn in Philadelphia and stayed there until the firm merged with Baker & Hostetler in 2014. Murphy served as an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School, teaching patent litigation, and will teach the same class at Villanova Law School in 2023. He also served as a law clerk for Chief Judge Kimberly A. Moore on the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit from 2008 to 2009.
He is co-author of the fourth and fifth editions of the casebook Patent Litigation & Strategy. Murphy received his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology. Before law school, he obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the California Institute of Technology and his B.S. in chemical engineering, summa cum laude, from Cornell University.