Bio
Judge Rita Lin was appointed to the San Francisco Superior Court in 2018. She currently presides over felony and misdemeanor criminal trials. She previously presided over a felony preliminary hearings calendar, where she heard motions to suppress, bail and detention motions, and a variety of other pretrial motions, and conducted preliminary hearings. Before becoming a judge, Judge Lin was an Assistant United States Attorney in San Francisco, where she worked on cases ranging from public corruption to organized crime and drug trafficking. As a federal prosecutor, Judge Lin developed the Northern District of California’s program to investigate medical professionals illegally prescribing opioids, and led the investigation and prosecution of the top opioid prescriber in California, who was convicted of thirty-nine counts of drug distribution at trial. Prior to her career as a prosecutor, Judge Lin was a litigation partner at Morrison & Foerster LLP, where she focused on class action defense and had an active pro bono practice, which included arguing one of the first cases requiring the federal government to recognize marriages between same-sex couples.