Magistrate Judge Young B. Kim was appointed to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in January 2010.
Judge Kim was born in South Korea. His family immigrated to the United States in 1977, when he was 11 years old, and initially settled in Chicago before moving to Niles, Illinois. Judge Kim was the first in his family to graduate from high school and college. He became a United States Citizen during his junior year of college, taking his oath of citizenship in the same courtroom where he is now honored to administer the oath to new citizens. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1988, and his law degree from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in 1991. Judge Kim and his wife (also a Loyola Law alum) have two children.
Judge Kim began his legal career as an Assistant Cook County Public Defender. He then served as a law clerk for United States District Court Judge Charles R. Norgle. In 1995, Judge Kim joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, where he prosecuted both civil and criminal matters. In 2001, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission appointed Judge Kim to serve as an Administrative Judge. With this appointment, he became the first Korean American to serve as a judge in the State of Illinois. He is the first Asian American to join the federal bench in the Seventh Circuit, which covers Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana, and only the fourth Korean American to serve as a federal judge in United States history.
Judge Kim was one of the founding members of the Chicago Chapter of the Korean American Bar Association in 1993. He was also a co-founder in 2000 of the monthly Pro Bono Legal Clinic run by the Korean American Bar Association and the Korean American Community Services, where he served as a clinic volunteer for nine years. He has also been honored with many professional awards, including the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association’s “Best Lawyers Under 40” award in 2004, the Chicago Bar Association’s Distinguished Public Service Award in 2007, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Community Service Award in 2009, the Korean American Association of Chicago’s Korean American of the Year award in 2011, and the 2012 Vanguard Award from the Asian American Bar Association.