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Deborah K. Chasanow, District Judge

6500 Cherrywood Lane
Suite 400
Greenbelt, MD 20770
(301) 344-0634


Judge Deborah K. Chasanow was born in Washington, D. C. in 1948.  She received her B.A. in 1970 from Douglass College of Rutgers University, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.   Judge Chasanow received her J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1974.

Upon graduation from law school, Judge Chasanow served as law clerk to the Honorable Judge David L. Cahoon, of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, Maryland.   Thereafter, she entered private practice in 1975, at the Washington, D. C. firm of Cole and Groner.  From 1975 to 1987, Judge Chasanow served in the Office of the Maryland Attorney General, first as an Assistant Attorney General, and then as Chief of the Criminal Appeals Division, from 1979 to 1987.

In 1987, Judge Chasanow was appointed as United States Magistrate Judge for the District of Maryland.  She remained in this position until 1993, when President Clinton nominated Judge Chasanow to the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.  The nomination was made on August 6, 1993, the Senate confirmed the nomination on October 18, 1993, and Judge Chasanow received her commission on October 20, 1993.   On January 4, 2010, Judge Chasanow became Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.  She served in that capacity until October 3, 2014, when she took senior status.

Admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1974, Judge Chasanow is also a member of the District of Columbia Bar (1975), the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (1976), and the U. S. Supreme Court Bar (1979).

Judge Chasanow is a member of many professional organizations, such as the Prince George’s County Bar Association and the Women’s Bar Association.   As a member of the Maryland State Bar Association, Judge Chasanow served on its committee on pattern jury instructions, criminal, is a past chair on the section on criminal law and practice, and was a council member on the section on litigation.  She is also a past president of the Marlborough American Inn of Court and a member of the National Association of Women Judges, the District Judges’ Association, and the Lawyers’ Round Table.