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Hon. Cathy Bissoon

U.S. District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania


Judge Bissoon was sworn in as a U.S. District Court Judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania in October 2011, after serving three years a magistrate judge. With her appointment, Judge Bissoon became the first Hispanic female Article III judge in Pennsylvania, the first Asian American Article III judge in Pennsylvania, and the first South Asian American female Article III judge in the United States. Judge Bissoon graduated summa cum laude from Alfred University in 1990 and received her law degree from Harvard Law School in 1993. She clerked for the late Chief Judge of the Weatern District of Pennsylvania, the Honorable Gary L. Lancaster, and later became a partner at Reed Smith and then a director at the Pittsburgh law firm of Cohen & Grigsby. Judge Bissoon was an original member of Pennsylvania’s Interbranch Commission for Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness. She was appointed by Chief Justice John Roberts as a member of the Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Civil Rules. She is a founding member of the Q. Todd Dickinson Intellectual Property American Inn of Court, and was elected as its first president in 2012. Judge Bissoon serves as a member of The Sedona Conference Diversity Committee, as a member of TSC’s Judicial Advisory Board, and as Judicial Advisor for The Sedona Conference’s Working Group 9 on Patent Damages and Remedies (WG9) and Working Group 10 on Patent Litigation Best Practices.