The Hon. Sheila K. Oberto is a U.S. Magistrate Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Fresno Division. She was appointed to the District Court in 2010.
Judge Oberto received her B.S. from the University of Southern California in 1977. She graduated with her M.S. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1979. She went on to earn her J.D. from the University of Southern California, Gould School of Law in 1985.
She began her legal career as a clerk for the Hon. Armand Arabian with the California Court of Appeals for the Second Appellate District. Then, upon completing her clerkship, Oberto entered into private practice. She first joined Irell and Manella LLP in 1985 and then in 1988, she joined Baker, Manock, and Jensen, where she practiced until 1989.
It was at that time that Oberto left the private sector to become an assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District assigned to the Civil Division. During her nine-year tenure in the Civil Division, Oberto helped prosecute a wide range of cases involving personal injury, contract actions, employment discrimination, civil rights cases, environmental and land use actions, tax cases, asset forfeiture, bankruptcy actions, and civil enforcement and civil fraud cases. Then, in 1999, she became an AUSA in the Criminal Division for the Eastern District where she handled cases involving complex white-collar crimes. During her tenure in the Criminal Division, Oberto served as the deputy chief of the USAO's Fresno Office and was also chief of the White Collar Crime Unit from 2008 to 2010. She remained in that capacity until her appointment to the District Court.