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Hon. Christopher M. Klein

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Hon. Christopher M. Klein is a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Eastern District of California in Sacramento, where he has been a judge since 1988, and he was a member of the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the Ninth Circuit from 1998 until August 2008, serving as Chief Judge from 2007-08. He is admitted to the California, District of Columbia, Illinois and Massachusetts Bar Associations. After completing service in the U.S. Marine Corps as an artillery officer in Vietnam and judge advocate, Judge Klein was a trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice, in private practice with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, and deputy general counsel-litigation of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. In 1988, he was appointed a U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Eastern District of California. He was appointed to the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel in 1998 and served for 10 years. From 2000-07, Judge Klein was a member of Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules of the Judicial Conference of the United States and the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Evidence. His bankruptcy-related publications include “Principles of Preclusion and Estoppel in Bankruptcy Cases,” 79 Am. Bankr. L.J. 839 (2005); and “Bankruptcy Rules Made Easy (2001): A Guide to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that Apply in Bankruptcy,” 75 Am. Bankr. L.J. 35 (2001). Judge Klein received his B.A. and M.A. from Brown and his M.B.A. and J.D. from the University of Chicago, where he was executive editor of its law review.