Hughes Hubbard & Reed partner Sarah Cave has been selected to serve as a Southern District of New York magistrate judge, the court announced Friday.

The Board of Judges for the Southern District court selected Cave for an eight-year magistrate judge term. She will sit in the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse at 500 Pearl St., assuming a seat presently occupied by Magistrate Judge Henry Pitman, who is retiring after 23 years of service. Pitman previously told the Law Journal he plans to step down from the bench at the end of September 2019.

At Hughes Hubbard, Cave, a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, has worked in a variety of practice areas, including contracts, antitrust, securities class actions, accountants' liability and commercial litigation.

Cave has practiced at Hughes Hubbard for 18 years. She previously served as a law clerk to U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard for the Southern District of Florida, and as a staff law clerk to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

The court said she has worked extensively on several of the largest litigations arising out of the financial crisis, handling proceedings in the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers, MF Global and Bernard L. Madoff Securities, among others. She is representing the Kingdom of Denmark in a billion-dollar tax fraud case, the court said.

She has completed the New York State Unified Court System's 30-hour mediation program, and she has been active in various bar groups, including the New York City Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association and the Federal Bar Council, the court said, noting she sits on the board of directors of the Legal Aid Society of New York and co-chairs the board's diversity and inclusion committee. She is also vice president of the board of the Federal Bar Foundation.

Cave co-chairs Hughes Hubbard's personnel and pro bono committees. In 2012, she was named a New York Law Journal's “Lawyer Who Leads by Example,” and in 2015, she received the Legal Aid Society's Public Interest Law Leadership Award.

In a statement, Chief Judge Colleen McMahon said Cave has a breadth of experience that equips her well for service on the Southern District bench. “She has handled both private and public sector litigation, trained as a mediator and amassed a record of leadership in the organized bar. We welcome her as our newest colleague,” McMahon said.