Zahid Quraishi/courtesy photo

Zahid Quraishi, a partner, white-collar defense chairman and chief diversity officer at Riker Danzig Scherer Hyland & Perretti, has been appointed U.S. magistrate judge in the District of New Jersey's Trenton vicinage.

The appointment was announced on Monday in a news release from Riker Danzig, which says Quraishi becomes the first Asian American to sit on the federal bench in state history.

Quraishi joined Morristown-based Riker Danzig in 2013 and was named a partner in 2016. Earlier this year, he was named chairman of the firm's white-collar criminal defense and investigations group. He served on its diversity committee, and this year was appointed as the firm's first chief diversity officer. He was also a member of the firm's management and hiring committees, the release noted.

On June 13, Quraishi is set to receive the “Professional Achievement Award” by the Asian Pacific American Lawyers Association at its annual gala.

Before joining Riker Danzig, Quraishi served as an assistant U.S. attorney for more than five years, trying 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 office's Criminal Division.

Quraishi previously was 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.

Before embarking on a legal career, Quraishi served in the U.S. Army and 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.

Federal magistrate judges, unlike district judges, can be appointed by the court and need not be nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Riker Danzig in the release noted other current and former attorneys who went into public service, including 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.