The Hon. Kelly A. Higashi is an associate judge for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. She was nominated to the bench by former President Donald Trump in February 2018. Higashi was confirmed by the United States Senate on July 12, 2018.
Prior to her nomination, she spent twenty-four years as an Assistant United States Attorney with the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, having joined the office in 1994. During the last fifteen years, Higashi served as Chief of the Sex Offense and Domestic Violence Section, tasked with prosecuting sexual assaults, domestic violence, child abuse, stalking, human trafficking, online child exploitation, and sex offender registration offenses. Before that, she was Chief of the Misdemeanor Trial Section and was instrumental in the creation of the Community Mediation Program and the implementation of the first Community Court pilot project. Higashi also investigated and tried criminal cases in Superior Court and the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
She received a B.A. in history from the University of Pennsylvania. Higashi then completed a J.D. at George Washington University School of Law.
After graduating from law school, she began her legal career as a judicial law clerk to the Hon. Frederick H. Weisberg with the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (1992 to 1994).
Higashi received the United States Attorneys Association Harold Sullivan Award (2016), the United States Attorney’s Justice for Victims of Crime Award, the United States Attorney’s Award for Excellence in Management, and the United States Attorney’s Award for Creativity and Innovation. She also received multiple United States Attorney’s Awards for Special Achievement and Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington Field Office Service Awards.
Higashi served as a member of the Superior Court’s Domestic Violence Rules Advisory Committee.
She was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.