This past week, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to confirm the nominations of Judges Edward Chen and Jacqueline Nguyen to serve on the federal bench. If both are approved by the full Senate, it would be historic steps. San Francisco U.S. Magistrate Judge Chen would be the first Asian American federal judge to serve in the Northern California federal courts while Judge Nguyen would be the first Vietnamese American to serve on the federal bench. According to this post at Bolsavik:

A native of Dalat, Vietnam and a daughter of a South Vietnamese colonel, Judge Nguyen came to the U.S. in 1975 when communist forces overran the country. She was graduated from Occidental College in L.A. - the same school where the President spent his freshman year before transferring to Columbia. (Young Obama had left just when young Nguyen arrived.) After Oxy, Jacqueline Nguyen went to UCLA Law.

She joined Musick, Peeler & Garrett, one of L.A.’s top firms. After four years in private practice, Judge Nguyen moved to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Central District of California, where she eventually became a deputy chief of the General Crimes Section. She is now a sitting judge on the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

If confirmed, Judge Nguyen will fill the seat made vacant when U.S. District Judge Nora Manella left to join the California Court of Appeals. Coincidentally, Judge Manella was the U.S. Attorney for the Central District when the young litigator Jacqueline Nguyen joined the office.

Further, in this report on Judge Chen's momentum in the Contra Costa Times, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Lucy Koh was mentioned as the likely nominee to fill the seat opened up by San Jose U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte's decision to take semiretired status earlier this year. The Obama administration has not completed its process.

Here is her bio from her appointment by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to her current position:

Koh, 39, of Stanford, has been a partner at McDermott, Will and Emery since 2002. Prior to that, she was a senior associate at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati from 2000 to 2002 and an assistant U.S. attorney in the major frauds section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California from 1997 to 2000. From 1996 to 1997, Koh was a special assistant to the U.S. Deputy Attorney General in Washington, D.C. and special counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice from 1994 to 1996. She earned a Juris Doctorate degree from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges. Koh fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Randolf Rice. Koh is a Democrat.