Hon. Karen Christy Holt Chesser is the District Administrative Judge of the District Court of Maryland in District Four. She was named to the position in 2016 by the Hon. John P. Morrissey, Chief Judge of the District Court of Maryland.
District Four includes Calvert, Charles, and St. Mary’s Counties.
Holt Chesser was first appointed to the bench as an associate judge for the St. Mary’s County District Court by former Governor Martin O’Malley in 2010. During her tenure on the District Court, she has sat as a member of the Judicial Council’s District Court Chief Judge’s Committee and the Maryland Electronic Courts Advisory Committee.
Prior to joining the judiciary, Holt Chesser served for four years as the County Attorney in St. Mary’s County. Before that, she was in private practice as a partner at Densford & Chesser (2005 to 2006). Holt Chesser had also managed her own private solo practice for seven years beginning in 1999.
Over the course of her legal career, she also spent time as a standing examiner with the St. Mary’s County Circuit Court (1982 to 1992 and 1999 to 2006) and was a prosecutor with the St. Mary’s County State’s Attorney’s Office. Holt Chesser first joined the office as an assistant state’s attorney in 1989, working her way up through the ranks to deputy state’s attorney in 1991. She remained in that capacity for seven years.
She received a B.A. in English literature from Washington College in 1982. Holt Chesser went on to complete a J.D. at the University of Maryland, Francis King Carey School of Law in 1985.
She was admitted to practice in Maryland (1985) and the United States District Court for the District of Maryland (1986).
After graduating from law school, Holt Chesser began her legal career as a law clerk in the Law Office of Karen H. Abrams, later joining the firm as an associate in 1986, though her time there was brief. The following year, she became a judicial law clerk to the Hon. John Hanson Briscoe with the St. Mary’s County Circuit Court, where she remained until 1989.
Her memberships have included the Maryland State Bar Association, the St. Mary’s County Bar Association, the American Bar Association, and the International Municipal Lawyers Association. Holt Chesser has also sat as a member of the Inquiry Panel of the Attorney Grievance Commission.
In addition, she was involved with the Mental Health Drug Abuse Advisory Council (volunteer attorney), the Rotary Club of Leonardtown, the St. Mary’s County Alliance, the Criminal Justice Coalition, Project Graduation, the St. Mary’s County Hot Spots Committee, and the Board of Directors of Marcey House.
Holt Chesser was born in Corpus Christi, Texas.