The Hon. Jia M. Cobb is a district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. She was nominated to the bench by President Joe Biden on June 15, 2021. Cobb was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 26, 2021, and received her judicial commission on November 12, 2021.
Prior to her nomination, she was a partner at Relman Colfax, PLLC since 2019. Cobb joined the firm, based in Washington, D.C., in 2012, where she handled complex civil rights litigation, including housing discrimination, employment discrimination, and police misconduct. She has also taught trial advocacy as an adjunct professor at American University Washington College of Law and as a visiting faculty member at Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Workshop.
Cobb received a B.A. from Northwestern University. She then completed a J.D. at Harvard Law School. While a law student, Cobb sat as coordinating editor of the Harvard Law Review.
After graduating from law school, she began her legal career as a clerk to the Hon. Diane P. Wood with the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Then, in 2006, Cobb became a trial attorney with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. During her six-year tenure there, she was a member of the Forensic Practice Group and acted as a supervisor to new attorneys.
Cobb was a member of the Criminal Law and Individual Rights Section Steering Committee of the District of Columbia Bar.
She was born in Springfield, Ohio, and attended Mercy High School in Farmington Hills, Michigan.