Riker Danzig is proud to announce that former partner Zahid N. Quraishi was installed as a United States Magistrate Judge for the District of New Jersey, Trenton vicinage on June 3, 2019.
Judge Quraishi joined Riker Danzig in 2013, and was named a partner in 2016. In 2019, he was named Chair of the Firm’s White Collar Criminal Defense and Investigations Group. He was deeply involved in Riker Danzig’s diversity initiatives, serving on its Diversity Committee. In 2019, the Firm appointed him as its first Chief Diversity Officer. In addition to these roles, he was a member of the Firm’s Management and Hiring Committees. On June 13, 2019, Judge Quraishi will receive the Professional Achievement Award by the Asian Pacific American Lawyers Association at its annual gala.
Before joining Riker Danzig, Judge Quraishi served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for over five years, where he tried numerous federal criminal cases involving public corruption, financial fraud, perjury, firearms and narcotics offenses within the Special Prosecutions Division and Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force and Government Fraud Units of the Criminal Division.
He previously represented the United States as an Assistant Chief Counsel and trial attorney with the Department of Homeland Security, and was military prosecutor with the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, where he achieved the rank of Captain. He was assigned to the First Infantry Division stationed in Germany and deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004 and 2006 before he was honorably discharged.
Judge Quraishi is the first Asian American to sit on the federal bench in New Jersey’s history. He continues Riker’s long and noted tradition of public service by many current and former attorneys who have served on the state and federal bench and held other public offices. Among them are Marie Garibaldi, the first woman to serve on the New Jersey Supreme Court, and Anne Patterson, the most recent woman appointed to the New Jersey Supreme Court.
