Kevin Ritz, who has served as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee since 2022, has been tapped to fill one of the seats left vacant when Judges Julia Smith Gibbons and Jane Stranch took senior status. Ritz has served in the U.S. attorney’s office in the since 2005 in various positions, including as appellate chief from 2018 to 2022.

Ritz, a 2004 University of Virginia School of Law graduate, served as a law clerk for Gibbons. He has also chaired the Tennessee Bar Association’s appellate practice section and was president of the Memphis/Mid-South Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, according to a biography the White House provided.