The United States District Court for the Central District of California announces the appointment of Christina T. Shay as a United States Magistrate Judge. Judge Shay was sworn in on June 8, 2026, and will preside over matters in Los Angeles in the Court’s Western Division. She succeeds former Magistrate Judge Alicia G. Rosenberg.
Before her appointment, Judge Shay served as an Assistant United States Attorney (“AUSA”) in Los Angeles beginning in 2011. Most recently, she served as Chief of the Criminal Division for the United States Attorney’s Office (“USAO”) in the Central District of California. She has also served as the Chief AUSA, the second-highest position at the USAO. In that role, she supervised the Civil, Criminal, and National Security Divisions and worked closely with the Acting United States Attorney to oversee the Office’s approximately 250 attorneys and its trial and appellate litigation. Judge Shay approved major proposed civil settlements involving federal agency clients, helped oversee affirmative civil litigation, and supervised criminal and national security matters ranging from infractions on federal lands to complex white-collar investigations. She also managed the USAO’s public affairs and community outreach efforts.
Previously, Judge Shay served as Deputy Chief of the USAO’s Criminal Division from 2021 to 2022, advising leadership on charging decisions and trial strategy in the Division’s most significant cases. From 2017 to 2021, she led the USAO’s reactive case unit, where more than 100 AUSAs rotated through a six-month training program focused on working with federal agents, drafting constitutional search warrants, and evaluating evidentiary sufficiency for criminal charges. Earlier, from 2011 to 2017, she served as a line AUSA in the General Crimes Section and later in the Violent and Organized Crime Section, appearing regularly in the United States District Court for the Central District of California for trials, suppression hearings, status conferences, and other proceedings.
Before joining the USAO, Judge Shay was an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York from 2007 to 2011. She also clerked for the Honorable Milan D. Smith, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable James Ware of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Judge Shay has served on the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association’s Food Basket and Gala Auction Committees, as well as the USAO’s Diversity and Hiring Committees. She has also served as a Girl Scouts of America troop leader.
Judge Shay received her Artium Baccalaureus degree in Government, magna cum laude, from Harvard University in 2002 and her Juris Doctor degree, cum laude, from New York University School of Law in 2005. From 2000 to 2001, she was a Harvard College Research Fellow at the Epilepsy Research Laboratory at Harvard University.
Including the position now occupied by Judge Shay, the Central District of California has 24 full-time magistrate judge positions. The Central District of California is comprised of the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo. It serves more than 19.3 million people, nearly half the population of the State of California.
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BRIAN D. KARTH
DISTRICT COURT EXECUTIVE / CLERK OF COURT