Paul J. Watford

Paul Jeffrey Watford (born August 25, 1967) is an American lawyer who served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 2012 to 2023. In 2016, The New York Times identified Watford as a potential Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. Watford resigned his judgeship in 2023 and became a partner at the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. He is currently a partner in the Business Litigation practice group of King & Spalding in Los Angeles.

Early life and education Watford was born in 1967 in Garden Grove, California. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, graduating in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts. He worked as a legal interviewer for the San Francisco Bar Association's lawyer referral service from 1989 to 1991, then attended the UCLA School of Law, where he was an editor of the UCLA Law Review. He graduated in 1994 with a Juris Doctor and Order of the Coif membership.

In 1996, Watford joined the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson. From 1997 to 2000, Watford was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Major Frauds Section of the Criminal Division of the Central District of California, where he prosecuted a wide range of federal criminal cases, including white-collar criminal cases. In 2000 he joined the Los Angeles office of the Chicago-based law firm Sidley Austin, but he returned to Munger in 2001, where he became partner in 2003. At Munger, where he worked until his confirmation, he focused on appellate litigation, appearing regularly in state and federal courts to argue his cases. He has authored or edited nearly twenty briefs prepared for the Supreme Court. Since June 2012, he has served as treasurer and board member of Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, a nonprofit providing pro bono legal services to the poor. He became a trustee of the Norton Simon Museum in 2019.

Federal judicial service On October 17, 2011, President Barack Obama nominated Watford to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary unanimously rated Watford as a "well-qualified" nominee, the highest possible rating. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Watford's nomination on December 13, 2011. On February 2, 2012, the Judiciary Committee reported Watford's nomination to the floor of the Senate by a 10–6 vote. At the hearing, Senator Patrick Leahy noted that Watford had support "from across the political spectrum," including support from a number of prominent conservative legal figures, including Orin Kerr and Eugene Volokh. The Senate confirmed Watford on May 21, 2012, by a 61–34 vote.

Watford resigned from the Ninth Circuit on May 31, 2023. He returned to private practice by joining Wilson Sonsini as a partner in Los Angeles. In February 2025, he joined the Business Litigation practice group of King & Spalding as a partner in its Los Angeles office.

Notable decisions Watford authored the decision of the Ninth Circuit's en banc decision in City of Los Angeles v. Patel (2014). In that case, the court struck down, 7–4, a Los Angeles city ordinance authorizing police to conduct surprise inspections of hotel and motel guest registries without obtaining the owners' consent or a search warrant. Watford, writing for the court, held that the ordinance violated the Fourth Amendment. The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decision in a 5–4 vote.

On November 15, 2021, Watford dissented when a 2–1 panel on the Ninth Circuit dismissed a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the son of a woman who died in police custody.

Supreme Court consideration

In late 2012, multiple national news organizations mentioned Watford as a possible nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States during Barack Obama's second term. Following Justice Antonin Scalia's passing in 2016, Watford interviewed with President Obama in consideration for the vacancy.

Selected publications