Temple University Beasley School of Law Presents: The Díaz Professorship

Luis Felipe Restrepo was born in Medellin, Colombia, was raised in Northern Virginia, and took the oath of United States citizenship on September 7, 1993. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and Tulane Law School and worked as a Defender in Philadelphia in both the local and federal courts before entering private practice in 1993. He was a partner in the firm of Krasner & Restrepo until June of 2006, when he was sworn in as a United States Magistrate Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He has been an adjunct professor at Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law since 1993 and an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School from 1997 to 2009, where he was appointed the Irving R. Segal Lecturer in advocacy.

His varied publications have appeared in The Legal Intelligencer, The National Law Journal, and the ABA’s Criminal Justice magazine. President Barack Obama nominated Judge Restrepo to be a United States District Court Judge in November of 2012. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 17, 2013 and received his commission on June 19, 2013. In November of 2014 President Obama nominated Judge Restrepo to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He was confirmed by the Senate on January 11, 2016 and received his commission on January 13, 2016. Judge Restrepo was nominated by President Trump, and more recently, by President Biden to serve on the United States Sentencing Commission. He was confirmed as a Vice-Chair of the United States Sentencing Commission in August of 2022.

Diana Cortes is the City Solicitor, the City of Philadelphia’s chief legal officer. She was appointed by the Mayor on December 11, 2020. She serves as general counsel to the Mayor and his Administration, City Council, and all City departments, agencies, boards, and commissions. She manages the City’s Law Department, which employs over 215 lawyers and over 100 professional staff. The Law Department’s diverse legal practice covers federal, state, and local agency litigation, commercial and real estate transactions, tax, regulatory law, social services, and legislation.

Prior to joining the Law Department, Diana was a litigator at Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin, P.C. in its Professional Liability Department. She represented municipalities, school districts, and police officers in civil rights litigation involving excessive force, wrongful arrest, due process violations, and malicious prosecution, among other matters.

Prior to Marshall Dennehey, she was an assistant district attorney for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, where she tried felony jury trials. She also worked in the Juvenile Division of the District Attorney’s Office, where she worked with juvenile victims of sex crimes in testifying against their adult perpetrators. Before the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, Diana was an attorney at Morgan Lewis & Bockius, LLP in its Litigation Department. There, her practice included a wide range of commercial litigation and white-collar criminal defense matters.

Jacqueline C. Romero was sworn in as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on June 21, 2022. As U.S. Attorney, Ms. Romero is the chief federal law enforcement officer responsible for all federal criminal prosecutions and civil litigation involving the United States in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which is one of the nation’s most populous districts with over 5 million people residing within its nine counties (Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton and Philadelphia), covering about 4,700 square miles. Ms. Romero supervises a staff of approximately 140 Assistant U.S. Attorneys and a similar number of non-attorney support personnel at offices in Philadelphia and Allentown.

Prior to her appointment as United States Attorney, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the same office for 16 years. While in that position, she specialized in fraud investigations and civil rights investigations, serving as the Civil Rights Coordinator for the Office for seven years and as a member of the Newark/Philadelphia Regional Medicare Fraud Strike Force for four years. Her other collateral duties also included appointment to the district’s Supervision to Aid Reentry (STAR) program, a heightened supervised release program for felons reentering the Philadelphia community.

Judge Sánchez became Chief Judge of the United States District Court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on August 1, 2018. He has served as a federal judge for over fifteen years and follows the Honorable Lawrence F. Stengel as the 15th Chief Judge of this district. He is the first Hispanic to lead the Court in its 229-year history. After a career with Legal Aid and the Public Defender’s Office of Chester County, Judge Sánchez was elected to the Chester County Court of Common Pleas in 1997. He served as a Judge there until President George W. Bush nominated him to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Judge Sánchez was inducted to the federal bench on July 9, 2004. Judge Sánchez graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, New York City. He received his B.A., cum laude, from City College of the City University of New York and his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he received the Benjamin R. Jones Award for his commitment to humanity and the law.