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Deep conversations with underrated lawyers.
Judge Chhabria thanks for having, for joining. This is a really great opportunity to share your experience, and so I'm excited to have you on.
Judge Vince Chhabria:Oh yeah, thank you for having me.
Khurram Naik:So I want to start with your experience in the San Francisco attorney's office. And what you had shared previously is that you had chosen to go to that office, which was somewhat of a surprising departure given some of the experiences you had and and credentials you had. And, I'd like to hear a little more about the decision that led you to to join that office.
Judge Vince Chhabria:Yeah. I mean, I will say that nowadays going to a place like the San Francisco City Attorney's Office is is not really the road less traveled. I mean, it's much it's much more well known, sought after job nowadays, given all the work that that the San Francisco City Attorney's Office has done and other city attorney's offices have done across the country over the last decade or so. But back in let's see. What was it?
Judge Vince Chhabria:02/2005, 2004 when I was deciding what to do after spending a couple of years at my law firm in San Francisco? I was doing white collar practice in the law firm. And so the natural next step for somebody who wants to go into public service, who is
Khurram Naik:Is.
Judge Vince Chhabria:You know, does white collar stuff at a firm is to go to, the US attorney's office, or at least it was back back in those days. And so I did apply to the US attorney's office thinking that this would be a cool, way to go into public service. The I didn't hear back from the US attorney's office for quite a while, and so that got me to sort of think more broadly about why I went to law school, what I might wanna do with my law degree, and how, I would wanna serve the public. And what I realized eventually is that although being an an assistant US attorney is a great job, and you can really, accomplish a lot if you do that job responsibly, It wasn't really why I went to law school. I went to law school to be involved in kind of constitutional public policy type issues that were important to the community.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And so I I started looking around and stumbled stumbled upon the the city attorney's office in San Francisco. And, in particular, I discovered the government litigation team in the city attorney's office, and that team was responsible for defending constitutional and other type challenges to city policies, city laws and city policies. And they were also doing, the marriage equality litigation. They were challenging, California's statutory ban on same sex marriage. And so all of that stuff really appealed to me.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And once I learned more about the office, I realized that this is precisely the kind of job that I went to law school to get. And so so I applied there and and quickly got hired by them, and it was really the best career decision I ever made to to go to the city attorney's office after my time at the law firm.
Khurram Naik:Can you say more about what you you had some expectations to get out of the experience, and then you probably gained things that were surprising out of it. So what what surprised you about your time in the office?
Judge Vince Chhabria:I guess the variety is one of the things that really surprised me. Like I said, I went to this team where the primary, duty was to defend the challenges to city policies. But our office also had started a robust affirmative litigation practice. The city attorney Dennis Herrera started the affirmative litigation task force, which consisted of, lawyers from different teams all across the office, and I joined that task force and got involved in affirmative litigation. There was the marriage equality litigation, as I mentioned.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And so, you know, in the city attorney's office, you know, it's both a city and a county, and so the government does a lot of stuff. There are there were almost, I think, 200 lawyers in the office when I was there. And, you know, every issue under the sun comes within the purview of the city attorney's office. There was the land use team, the health care team, the tax team, the code enforcement team, the the labor and employment team, the trial team, which does a lot of your bread and butter trial work defending police officers or, you know, the bus runs over somebody or whatever, and there's a lawsuit about it. There's a a team out at the airport that does legal issues relating to the airport, Any number of different teams and any number of different legal issues.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And so it's like, if you're if you're into public policy and local government and law, you're like a kid in a candy store. There's there's gonna be something interesting for you in the city attorney's office. So that that really, that kinda surprised me, and it was also one of the really cool things about the job.
Khurram Naik:Is it the I mean, you described a very generalist practice and, arc of your courts or courts with limited jurisdiction, but there's still a generalist variety of the the nature that you work on. Do you see a pretty straightforward connection between the generalist variety of the practice in the attorney's office and then, you know, the impact that had on the bench? I'm I'm curious about the ways in which your experience there prepared you for the bench.
Judge Vince Chhabria:Yeah. It is kind of similar. One of the other things that I did in the city attorney's office is I, became the chief of appellate litigation. And so in that capacity, I'm overseeing the appeals, in all of our cases coming from all of our teams. Right?
Judge Vince Chhabria:So I was able to dabble in a lot of different areas of law and learn about a lot of different areas of law. And this job is very similar in that, you know, you know, you'll get securities cases and civil rights cases and intellectual property cases, constitutional cases, employment discrimination cases, etcetera, etcetera. And oftentimes, the, you know, the case will present an issue that you've never had to deal with before and you've never learned about before. And so I do think there was a parallel from my old job to my to my new one in that respect.
Khurram Naik:Mhmm. And then at least historically, there wasn't a very tried and true path from the state attorney's office to or similar roles to an Article III role.
Judge Vince Chhabria:Yeah. True. Can
Khurram Naik:about that you path? And is that becoming more common now? Tell me some more about that that that transition.
Judge Vince Chhabria:Yeah. Well, I think that, back when I, went to the city attorney's office, you know, if I I I I I never really planned on becoming a judge, and it was never my goal to become a judge. I think if it had been my goal, I would have gone to the US attorney's office. Right? Because back then, it was so common for prosecutors and big law people to get put on the bench.
Judge Vince Chhabria:I mean, the federal bench was filled primarily with federal prosecutors and big law people. And, you know, but I, like I said, that's not something that was on my mind back then. I was focused on, you know, doing the job that would be most most interesting and most fulfilling for me. But as it turns out, that decision probably probably contributed to my ultimately, becoming a federal judge. Because in Obama's second term, they started focusing really heavily on experiential diversity, and that's something that continued in the Biden administration.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And I think they realized, you know, starting in Obama's second term, that we have too many former federal prosecutors and big law people on the bench, and we need, you know, experiential diversity. We need people who have had different work experiences and come at at it with different perspectives. And so they started looking for defenders. They started looking for, you know, people who maybe were solo practitioners. I mean, somebody who was nominated with me and had her confirmation hearing with me was a was a solo practitioner and local government lawyers.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And so I think that that actually my professional experience, once I decided to apply for the bench, my professional experience was a benefit. And, you know, that's just something that you can never predict, but it but, it turned out well in that regard.
Khurram Naik:What changed your mind about, taking an interest in becoming a federal judge?
Judge Vince Chhabria:Well, I don't know if it's so much that I changed my mind. It's just something that I never particularly thought about or, had as a goal. I always thought that I would be one of those Washington policy lawyer types, who kinda bounced in and out of administrations and, you know, was involved in in federal policy making and federal legal issues. I also thought that I I always assumed that I would be working on stuff that would be too controversial to allow me to become a federal judge. And, certainly, at the time, that was true of marriage equality, right, back in 2005 when, you know, lawyers who who worked in favor of marriage equality, that was sort of considered a strike on their on their, resume probably from the standpoint of getting on the bench.
Judge Vince Chhabria:But, eventually, the tide turned. And, you know, once the tide turned, I remember that the folks from the South Asian Bar Association approached me about whether I would be interested in in applying for the bench. And in particular, the the head of Saba Northern California here at the time, Karen Jan, raised the issue with me. I think she was the first person ever to raise raise this issue with me and kind of encouraged me to apply and was a big supporter of mine throughout the process. And, you know, when she did raise it with me, I I thought, hey.
Judge Vince Chhabria:That actually would be really cool. Maybe I should think about that, and I put my name in not too long after that.
Khurram Naik:What did you think would be cool?
Judge Vince Chhabria:Well, I did clerk at, for three years in the federal courts, and so I had a sense of what a fun and rewarding job it could be. And, one of the things that's great about it, we already discussed. Right? It's that you get a bunch of interesting issues, and it's constantly new stuff. And you're constantly having to deal with new challenges and learn new issues and decide new issues, and so it's stimulating in that respect.
Judge Vince Chhabria:The other thing is that it is rewarding. It it it very much feels particularly, I will say, the district court level, it feels like if you are rolling up your sleeves and doing a good job on a day to day basis, you are making a a contribution to the community. It might not be at some giant mega contribution, but, in little ways, whether it's, you know, dealing with how you're dealing with sentencing, criminal sentencing, or how you're deciding cases or how you're managing the cases, if you do a good job, you're making a positive contribution to the community. And, so that was what and I had that sense, you know, before when I before I applied because of having clerked here. And, so so that that's what made the job attractive to me.
Khurram Naik:And now you're you're more than ten years into the role. What surprised you the most about the role?
Judge Vince Chhabria:Probably a couple of different things. Number one is I assumed when I started that a pretty high percentage of the motions would only have one reasonable answer, that precedent would dictate the answer to in these in most of the motions, and, you know, reasonable judges could not disagree on the answer. That is certainly true of some motions, but I would say it's a much lower percentage. Like, I think I probably assumed that was gonna be, like, 80% of the motions, and it's probably closer to 40%. So that means on most of the motions, you know, reasonable judges could different could disagree on the outcome of the motion.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And so it's more challenging than expected and probably more rewarding than I expected too. Because, again, if you do a good job and you, you know, you think you're you're getting the right answer, you're you're making a contribution. So that's one. The other thing that really surprised me was I was expecting the civil case management part of the job to be boring. And, you know, I listened to you.
Judge Vince Chhabria:I had a great interview with judge Kennelly a while ago, and he talked a lot about case management. You could tell from the way he was talking about it that he found it rewarding too and and that he understood that if you do a really good job managing the cases, that is one way in which you're making a really positive contribution to justice and to the community. And and I sort of expected when I came into it that it would be just more a case of housekeeping and set of dates and kind of this mundane scheduling stuff. And that but then I realized largely for the reasons discussed by judge Cannelley that that, you know, how you manage the case really has an impact on, you know, how things go for the litigants, you know, the cost of the litigation for the the litigants, and, you know, whether justice is being served, frankly. So I have found the case management side of things to be quite rewarding, and that was a big surprise for me.
Khurram Naik:So now this is maybe one answer to it, but so about a decade or so into the role, there's any number of things that maybe are somewhat routine for you at this point. You mentioned something like deciding motions where you had an expectation early on that maybe these are largely resolved by consensus, but actually, it seems like there's a lot of judgment involved. So but there's there's there's probably things that are common that you've experienced a number of times. What keeps things interesting and fresh for you day to day today?
Judge Vince Chhabria:That is not a challenge at all. Because, you know, when I compare now to five years ago or eight years ago or whatever, one thing is that I'm much better now at knowing what I need to spend a lot of time on and what I don't need to spend a lot of time on. So it it it I'm much better able to dispose of some of the easy issues in a relatively quick amount of time, leaving me more time to to dive into the more difficult and important issues. So that keeps it fresh, and I think for that reason for that reason, I'm better at my job than I was five, eight years ago. The other thing is just even putting that aside, you know, we get so many, you know, new and interesting issues all the time.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And, you know, even I've had I've had a number of securities fraud cases, for example. Right? I've probably had, like, you know, forty, fifty securities fraud cases in the ten, eleven years that I've been on the bench. But even within that universe of securities fraud cases, new issues keep coming up all the time. And, and there there's problem solving to be done in the cases, and there are difficult legal issues to confront, and the law changes, and the facts on the ground evolve.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And so, you know, even in that category of cases, you know, it continues to be really interesting and stimulating and new and exciting. And and the same can be said for a number of different, you know, categories of of cases. And so that's the great thing about this job. And and, frankly, you see we have a numb number of senior judges who have been on the bench for twenty, thirty, forty years, and a lot of them enjoy their job now more than they ever have because that it continues to be stimulating. It continues to be interesting to them, and it it, like, never gets old.
Khurram Naik:So I think it might be interesting to talk about your your process for your work product, your opinions, because a lot of practitioners I talked to a number of practitioners, a number of whom I've interviewed previously and there's a very clear consensus among them that your opinions are notably more direct and often shorter than other federal judges. And so what process would another federal judge, let's say a federal judge new to the bench, use to communicate like you?
Judge Vince Chhabria:Well, I I think, you know, I go back to when I when I first started the job, and I I think that part of this comes from the public service focus. I mean, I came from a public service job, and I view this, again, as a public service job. It's a gold plated public service job. People are, like, opening the door for you and stuff like that. But, but it is we are here to figure out the best way to serve the public.
Judge Vince Chhabria:So when I started, and even before I started, I I really thought carefully about what's what's the best way as a district judge to serve the public. And I think an underrated way of doing that is moving the docket along, moving the cases along quickly, not, you know, protecting against undue delay. There are circuit judges who have more time to ponder these issues really deeply and take a long time to write long opinions and, all that. You know, if we treat the cases like circuit judges would, we as district judges would be doing a disservice to the public, I think, because the parties need to get an answer from you on the legal issue that they've teed up in front of you so that they can decide how to proceed, whether they can decide whether to settle or whether to go to trial or whether to appeal or whether to change a policy or, you know, whatever the case may be. And so I always thought an underrated part of serving the public well in this job is moving the cases along.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And so I designed the system within chambers with largely with that in mind. So what that means, is that, we don't have bench memos. We don't do bench memos here where the the, you know, the law clerk lays out the arguments being made by both sides and discusses the case law and then makes a recommendation. Sort of thought that that is probably, in most cases, a waste of time. So instead, we sit down, usually the on a Monday, to discuss the hearings that are coming up on Friday or, sorry, on Thursday.
Judge Vince Chhabria:Sometimes we'll we'll sit down earlier, but usually it's on a Monday. And I I often will not have started reading the materials yet. If it's a big case, I'm I will already have started reading the materials. But often, I will not have started reading the materials yet. And the law clerks will just start presenting the cases to me, telling me what the issues are, describing, identifying the key cases that I need to make sure to read and the key evidence that I need to make sure to look at, etcetera, etcetera.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And they will give me kind of a help me strategize for how to prepare for the hearing. And then I'll start reading the briefs and the cases and the papers and stuff like that, and I'll circle back with the law clerks and ask follow-up questions. And what about this? What about that? Etcetera.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And then, that's how we prepare for the hearing. We might also decide that we don't need a hearing, and we'll vacate the hearing and decide it on the papers if it's an easy case. And then, after the hearing and usually shortly after the hearing, we will issue a a very short, ruling. Right? And we use the term here.
Judge Vince Chhabria:You know, in the ninth circuit, the ninth circuit will do two types of rulings. Right? They'll do published opinions, and they'll do unpublished memorandum dispositions. And the unpublished memorandum disposition is usually a short ruling that presumes that the reader is familiar with the arguments made by the parties, the facts of the case, the applicable legal standard, etcetera. And it'll just get right to the point, a short and sweet explanation for why one side wins and the other side loses.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And that you know, 95% of our rulings are in the men despo style. And and so we don't take the time to write law the clerks don't take the time to write long bench memos, and we don't convert those long bench memos into long district court opinions. We just do a quick, we do explain our reasoning. Right? We make clear why one side wins and the other side loses.
Judge Vince Chhabria:But the theory is it's better to get it get them a short ruling quickly than it is to get them a long, ruling much later down the line. And so that that's the system that we adopted when I first got here, and it's largely stayed that way, ever since. And, I think it's worked really well. I think it's it's helped us, manage the cases, manage the docket well, and move things along while still allowing for careful consideration of the issues. Now there's a, you know, probably five or 10% of the motions.
Judge Vince Chhabria:We will decide that we need to do a full length opinion, like a proper judicial opinion with a factual background section and a legal standard section and all of that. Maybe it's because it's a matter of significant public interest. Maybe it's because we feel that, the case law is muddled and there's something that we can say that might help sort of clear up the case law, or something along those lines. Right? And so in that in that situation, we'll do, you know, we'll do a more full length we'll do a full length opinion, and it'll often take longer to get out.
Judge Vince Chhabria:But by minimizing the number of those that we do, the you know, we're able to move the docket along much faster. I guess the only other comment I'll make about that is that as I am on the bench longer, I'm here. I've been here eleven years now. I you know, I'm sort of committed to doing more full length opinions, because I think I know the job a little better and and sort of maybe have a little more to offer than I did eight years ago or six years ago or whatever. And so we're probably doing a a bit more full length opinions than than we did at the outset.
Khurram Naik:And it seems that something's associated with the style, the Mendisto style that you're describing, is plain language, which can be very sharp. Is there a connection to these two? Are they separable?
Judge Vince Chhabria:I think they're I mean, I think it's easier to do a memdispo if you're using plain language, direct language, but I I think they're kind of two different things because I think that we use those in our opinions too. I think we use pretty plain direct language in our opinions. And our full length opinions are usually a lot shorter than the typical full length opinion, by the way. And I think that that that's kind of a separate issue, but it it also has to do with public service. Right?
Judge Vince Chhabria:That that, you know, we, it's really important. I the way what I tell my law clerks is think about somebody who maybe is a nonlawyer, like a perhaps a sophisticated nonlawyer, and what do we need to tell them? What do we need to teach them in order for them to be able to understand why we're ruling the way we rule? So you might think about, you know, a legislator who is, you know, busy and smart, but not a trained lawyer or not a practicing lawyer, and what do we need to explain to them in plain language so that they get what we're doing? We're like a busy reporter or something like that.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And we just try to write with with that sort of reader in mind Gotcha. And, you know, try to avoid the legal jargon and all the a lot of the gobbledygook that you we see in in judicial opinions, particularly earlier judicial opinions.
Khurram Naik:And then so if other other federal judges, seem whether it's reticence or otherwise, they just they don't use that style, both of the, you know, length opinion, plain language and and and tone, which I can see as you're saying, let's say a reporter, it's very eye catching to use some of the rhetoric that you use in some of your opinions. For instance, we'll talk about cadre opinion and there's definitely some strong language in there. And so with that, how would you, let's say, with the new federal judges turning you for some guidance, how would you, make the case for you're saying there's a public interest in the decisions you're making. How would you, influence your peer federal judges to, be influenced by the the style techniques you're describing here?
Judge Vince Chhabria:Well, I mean, I think it's for every new judge to decide how they wanna do it, and it depends what you're comfortable with. But I would just, you know, I would just say that, you know, the law you know, for for the law to be understandable, it needs to be accessible. And, you know, I I do think that one, you know, big problem that the judiciary has is not being accessible enough in its writing, and and it makes it harder to understand why we decide stuff the way we do. Mhmm.
Khurram Naik:So in terms of impact of your time on the bench, some leading litigators and lawyers have referred to as being a leading feeder judge of clerks to the Supreme Court. What is it in your process that has made you such a source of lawyers that go on to clerk at the Supreme Court?
Judge Vince Chhabria:Well, I think, that's pretty easy. I've been able to hire law clerk candidates who also end up clerking for great circuit judges. So, you know, people like Michelle Friedland and Sriri Srinivasan and a number of others and and, you know, that the those those are the people who tend to go clerk at the Supreme Court. The other thing that we focus very heavily on in our hiring process here is making sure that, we have nice people. And, you know, we it's been eleven years now, and we've never had a problem person.
Judge Vince Chhabria:We've never had somebody with sharp elbows or who's trying to, you know, nicer to the you know, more respectful to the judge than to the janitor or being competitive with their coclerks or anything like that. And and, you know, we work really hard to to weed those people out. And those people tend to not be great, you know, great candidates for the Supreme Court either, frankly, perhaps contrary to popular wisdom. So that's really all I have to say about that.
Khurram Naik:What do you miss about not being a judge?
Judge Vince Chhabria:Boy, very little. Very little. I mean, the the job is so interesting and so low stress. I mean, there is there is literally nothing to stress about in this job. I mean, you know, you you know, maybe one exception is, you know, criminal sentencing.
Judge Vince Chhabria:You you know, those are some there sometimes there's some gut wrenching decisions there. Another exception might be law clerk hiring. That can be kinda stressful because the stakes are so high. Because if you do get somebody who's, like, a problem person in chambers, it can it it could be, you know, it could be really bad for the year. And that's why we work so hard to weed out those types.
Judge Vince Chhabria:But it's such a low stress job. And you you think I I always think about how, you know, if I had a big oral argument as a lawyer and I'm driving into work that day, I'm, like, you know, going over in my mind all the possible questions I could get and thinking about how I would answer them and making sure I knew in my head where the evidence was in the record to support the points that I was making and, like, talking to myself in the car, people looking over and staring at me, and I guess probably they thought I was on the phone. But, you know, it it's it it's you know, being a lawyer who is stressful, and being a lawyer who goes and argues in front of the ninth circuit or whatever is you know, it's it can be quite stressful. But, you know, when I'm driving into work as a judge and I've got a big hearing, I'm thinking about the questions I can ask. I'm thinking about the things I don't have a good handle on and thinking, oh, cool.
Judge Vince Chhabria:I'll be able to ask the lawyers these questions, and they will help me, hopefully, understand the answer to these questions that I'm struggling with. And so there's just nothing to stress about because I don't have to have all the answers. I just have to ask the right questions. Right? And, you know, I've got my law clerks helping me and all that kind of stuff.
Judge Vince Chhabria:So it's just there's very little that I miss. I would say that every once in a while when I'm driving into work, I might be listening to the radio, and there's some something exciting happening in city hall or some big, you know, blow up in San Francisco politics or something like that. And I and I think to myself, I'd like to be in the middle of that and, like, helping helping the clients troubleshoot that, helping people solve this problem. But, you know, there's plenty of problem solving to be done as a judge too. And so there it's I barely ever think about the stuff that I used to do and wish that I could keep doing it.
Judge Vince Chhabria:Mean, this job is just is just remarkable.
Khurram Naik:Well, that's interesting because on one hand, think of, like, a barbell here. On one hand, you're probably a lot funnier now. You get a lot more people laughing at your jokes.
Judge Vince Chhabria:Yeah. That's one thing I I miss. Actually, that's something I'm it's a good I'm glad you brought that up because the other thing I miss is getting, honest, critical feedback because I don't you know, it it is virtually impossible for a judge to get honest critical feedback. My best source of honest critical feedback, it can be from my law clerks. But even then, I think some sometimes law clerks are nervous to give you honest critical feedback.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And, you know, that's something that I always have sought throughout my career, as a lawyer and even as a judge, and I think that's how you get better. Right? Is that you continue to question yourself. You continue to seek critical feedback, and I do miss not being able to get nearly as much of that in this job.
Khurram Naik:Well, how do you contextualize in the critical because I think of, say, appellants, they're gonna have some critical feedback about a decision. Half half of these, you know, outcomes or or or half the people are going be dissatisfied with your decision and have something to say about it. And then there's the appellate courts, they've got feedback for your decision. Aren't those forms of feedback that are relevant or is there something different about that?
Judge Vince Chhabria:I think there's something different about that. It's that's not so much about how you do your job and whether you're doing a good job. Right? Because, you know, if you get reversed by the circuit, it you know, it might be because you missed the issue. Like, you didn't you know, you made a mistake.
Judge Vince Chhabria:Right? But, again, that's I I think that that part of being a good district judge is not spending all your time trying to avoid mistakes. Right? Because that that then comes at the expense of moving the cases along and, you know, the the justice system functioning properly. So but if you get reversed, it might be because you made a mistake, or it might be because the circuit made a mistake, or it might be because reasonable and this is the most common.
Judge Vince Chhabria:Right? Reasonable judges can differ on the outcome. And so it's not I don't really view a reversal as criticism of how you did your job. It's just part of the system. Right?
Judge Vince Chhabria:So
Khurram Naik:the other part is you you deal with these really consequences consequential decisions to the Northern District Of California. It's a very important jurisdiction nationally. There's high stakes matters, for instance, involving this administration. There's a variety of we'll talk about the culture matter in a moment. So there's these high stakes matters, matters of first impression.
Khurram Naik:You're saying that you don't really feel a lot of pressure in those scenarios? Because sitting here thinking about how it feel like to be in your shoes, I feel that I would have a lot of pressure. But it sounds like you don't experience that.
Judge Vince Chhabria:No. I mean, it's it's you know, pressure is when you have to make a decision, like, really quickly. And sometimes in the you know, when you get a preliminary injunction motion or a TRO application, you you have that, I guess. But, no. I I I you know, it's I view it as, like, a pleasure and a privilege to be working on these kinds of issues.
Khurram Naik:Okay. So we teed up the Cottage decision, and you mentioned this concept of, you know, potentially, there being disagreements, and I think that's this this decision, I think, will be an interesting lens on that. So first, if you can give some context to the decision, we recognize it's an ongoing matter, so we'll be careful in in in the scope of what we discuss here. But can you speak about the process used to arrive at the market dilution framework you proposed for fair use?
Judge Vince Chhabria:Yeah. Well, maybe first by way of background, like, to so so that people know what the case is about. And and I do need to be very careful and limit myself only to stuff that I have said from the bench or said in my ruling because it is an ongoing case. But it's a it's a lawsuit by book authors, right, who claim that it's copyright infringement for Meta to use their books to train its gender generative AI models without compensating them. And Meta's argument is that it's it's it's fair use.
Judge Vince Chhabria:Right? That using copyrighted books to train AI models falls within the fair use exception to copyright infringement. And so a few months ago, we had oral argument on summary judgment, and Mehta's lawyer, Canon Shanmugam, focused heavily on, the fact that the purpose of the copying is transformative. Right? That is copy the copying is being done to create something very different from the original.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And often, that'll be dispositive in copyright cases. Right? If the copying is for a transformative purpose, it's going to be considered fair use, and it's not copyright infringement. But what I said at the hearing and and in my subsequent ruling is that, you know, the AI situation is potentially different. Right?
Judge Vince Chhabria:Yes. The use is transformative. I don't think there's any doubt about that. But the thing that copyright law cares about most is preserving the incentives for artists to create. And if you let a company copy protected books for the purpose of creating a product that enables the production of literally millions of books in the same genre using only a minuscule fraction of the human creativity, that has serious potential to harm the market for the books that were copied.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And so I said that this is one of those situations where copying the book for a transformative purpose might not get you out of copyright infringement. That's the market dilution point that you referenced. Right? The issue in our case was that the plaintiffs didn't put in any evidence that they would be harmed by market dilution. And so I granted summary judgment in favor of Meta in this particular case, against these particular individual plaintiffs.
Judge Vince Chhabria:You asked how I got to the to the issue. In this case, we were fortunate enough to have a bunch of amicus briefs filed on both sides. That's very rare in district court cases, but, obviously, this is a big case. And so even though the parties didn't address the issue too much in their briefs, the plaintiffs didn't address the issue too much in their briefs, it was, addressed in the amicus briefs and in the sources that the amicus briefs cited. So, I, you know, read those briefs, read a lot of the sources that they cited, and learned about the issue that way, and was able to to to, you know, discuss the issue as a result of that.
Khurram Naik:So judge Olsup had a decision two days earlier. How did you think about the impact of different approaches from colleagues in the same district court on on fair use?
Judge Vince Chhabria:Well, I mean, I guess I have a specific response and then a more general response. First, the more general response. You know, my law clerk asked me a similar question. I have a you know, my law clerks just came in. They're new now, and and one of them asked me, how should we be thinking about, opinions from other judges on the Northern District?
Judge Vince Chhabria:Because sometimes the lawyers will in the briefs, they will say, this district has held x, y, and z. Right? And and you you look at that, and you cock your head, and you're like, well, what does that mean? Because a ruling by another judge in this district is no more binding or no more per should arguably be no more persuasive than a ruling by any other district judge. Right?
Judge Vince Chhabria:There's not it's not binding on me. And I and and that's the way I view it, right, is that, I mean, obviously, I have great colleagues and take very seriously what they have to say. But, you know, the fact that multiple colleagues have ruled one way on an issue is not going to be a thumb on the scale for me ruling the same way on that issue. As a matter of fact, I was telling this law clerk the other day that that, you know, we had one case a few years ago where 11 judges on the Northern District Of California dismissed this this type of claim, this particular type of claim. And then I got one of these, and I disagreed with all 11 of the judges.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And I I denied the motion to dismiss, and that was an example of writing a full length opinion and explaining why. Right? But, you know, obviously, gonna pay close attention to what the colleagues say, but the it doesn't create a thumb on the scales one way or another for how we decide a case in these chambers. And then you mentioned that judge Alsup issued a ruling in his AI case a couple days before ours, and judge Alsup had a very different perspective on the issue than than I did. He he placed tremendous amount of weight on the trans you know, the transformative nature of the use, and that seemed kinda dispositive for him.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And so, yeah, we we got that ruling, a couple days before we issued ours, read his ruling, and included a bit of a response to it in in our ruling.
Khurram Naik:So I'm mindful of our time here, and so we've got a final question. I I post you the question is you have a number of law clerks over the years, and the relationship is a really special one, and they really are able to see how you think up close. And so my question for you is, what is your key advice that you give your law clerks? What's what's the most important advice you give them on career?
Judge Vince Chhabria:Yeah. I mean, think I think it probably goes back to my experience applying for the US attorney's office and the city attorney's office. I think that it's you should not be getting you should not be taking a job based on where you think it will get you. You should be taking a job based on how fulfilling and happy fulfilling it will be and happy it will make you. I know that sometimes there are financial constraints, and I'm always I always try to be mindful of that.
Judge Vince Chhabria:I know you can't not everybody can just go work for the ACLU. Right? But, you know, within those financial constraints, definitely don't, don't think about, like, the prestige level of the job. Don't think about where it might get you five or ten or twenty years down the road. Just do what is gonna be most fulfilling and for you and what's gonna make you happiest, and that is gonna increase the chances of you having success down the road.
Judge Vince Chhabria:Because, you know, if you're doing a job that's more fulfilling and makes you happier, you're gonna do a better job at it. People are gonna like you more because you're gonna be happier. They're gonna be more likely to wanna help you. And all in all, you know, your career is probably gonna go better. Plus, you can never really predict which job is gonna get you to which place because things are always changing as my experience shows.
Judge Vince Chhabria:And so I think that's the primary advice that I that I try to give folks.
Khurram Naik:Thanks, This is definitely the funniest episode of Record yet.
Judge Vince Chhabria:Really? Oh, wow. You need to get some some better, guests. But, anyway, thank you very much. I appreciate you having me, and it was a lot of fun.
Judge Vince Chhabria:Thanks.