Chairman Rhonda Schmidtlein announced that Judge Clark S. Cheney has joined the U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) as an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”). ALJ Cheney joins ALJs Bullock, Pender, Shaw, Lord, and McNamara. He is the first new ALJ to join ITC since the retirement of ALJ Essex in August 2017 (reported here).

Cheney comes to ITC with experience as an ALJ at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Social Security Administration. He also has prior experience at the ITC, having worked there in the Office of the General Counsel. Cheney’s responsibilities at that time included arguing appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on behalf of the Commission. Notably, he was the attorney on the en banc argument in Suprema Inc. v. ITC. During his time at the ITC, Cheney also served as an attorney advisor in the Commission’s Office of Administrative Law Judges, including an assignment to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Earlier in his career, Cheney was a USPTO patent examiner.

Cheney graduated cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center and earned a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Utah. After graduation from law school, he clerked at the Federal Circuit for Judge William Bryson, and then spent several years in private practice prior to joining Federal Government.