In September 2021, the U.S. Senate confirmed Florence Pan as the first Asian-American woman to serve as a federal district court judge in Washington, D.C. Pan, a former federal prosecutor who has served as a judge on the D.C. Superior Court since 2009, was first nominated to the federal court in 2016 by President Barack Obama—but her nomination was caught up in the Senate and stalled. Pan was renominated by President Joe Biden in March 2021 and successfully confirmed. She fills the seat vacated by now-U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“The historic nature of Judge Pan’s nomination will help build a federal bench that reflects full diversity,” U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said Wednesday on the Senate floor. Pan is the 14th of Biden’s 43 judicial nominees to win approval.