Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong
• President of the United States has nominated a black lady to serve in one of California’s federal Courts
• Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong was born to Kwaku Ewusi-Mensah and Theodora Ewusi-Mensah
• Her nomination is yet to be confirmed
A Ghanaian lady has been nominated by U.S President Joe Biden to serve in the US District Court for Central of Carlifonia.
She would be, if confirmed, the only black lady to serve in any of the California’s four federal District Courts and the one of only eight across the whole of the United States.
She will hold a seat on the US District Court for the Central District of California as a lifetime appointment in the upper echelons of the US judiciary.
Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong was born in 1975 in the Los Angeles County, California.
She was born to Kwaku Ewusi-Mensah and Theodora Ewusi-Mensah who are both immigrants from Ghana.
Maame worked as a high school teacher in a public school in Ghana after earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University but later returned to the states to attend Yale Law School where she earned her J.D. in 2001.
Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong clerked for the Hon. Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. District Court Justice for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals from 2001 to 2002.
She then joined the San Francisco law firm of Morrison and Foerster LLP as an associate. During her five years with the firm, Frimpong practiced civil and intellectual property litigation.
From 2007 to 2015, Frimpong left California to join the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., where she worked as a trial attorney for two years. During her time as an attorney for the DOJ, she handled cases involving government contracts, government personnel, and international trade disputes.
Frimpong then became counsel to the-U.S. Assistant Attorney General Tony West with the Civil Division of the DOJ in 2009. While in that capacity, Frimpong served as an advisor to the former U.S. Assistant A.G. in the matters of intellectual property, immigration, international trade, consumer protection, and international law. She remained there until 2011 when she would serve as the deputy assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Consumer Protection Branch.
Then, in 2014, after briefly serving as principal deputy associate Attorney General, Frimpong became counsel to then-U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. where she served as an advisor in matters involving national security, financial fraud, intellectual property, tax, immigration, and all other issues that fell under the scope of the DOJ.
Frimpong left the Department of Justice in 2015 to join The Millennium Challenge Corporation in Washington, D.C., a foreign aid agency run by the United States government.
She served first as a corporate secretary, then as general counsel, before ultimately becoming Vice President. She was serving in that capacity at the time of her appointment to the Superior Court in 2016.
Throughout her legal career, Judge Frimpong has sought to provide pro bono legal assistance to low-income individuals through various outreach entities.