David F. Levi

David Frank Levi (born August 29, 1951) is a United States jurist and former Dean of the Duke University School of Law. From 1990 to 2007, he was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, serving as Chief Judge from 2003 to 2007. At the time Levi left the bench, he was widely considered to be one of the top federal judges in the nation. He had been mentioned as a possible nominee to the Supreme Court. Education Levi was born in Chicago, Illinois. His father was Edward H. Levi, a former president of the University of Chicago and United States Attorney General under President Gerald R. Ford. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in History and Literature magna cum laude in 1972 and then entered the graduate program in history at Harvard where he eventually specialized in English legal history, receiving a Master of Arts. He received his Juris Doctor in 1980 from the Stanford Law School, where he graduated Order of the Coif and was President of the Stanford Law Review. Career