Honorable Mustafa T. Kasubhai, JD ’96—University of Oregon School of Law graduate and United States District Court Judge for the District of Oregon—will deliver the keynote address at the 2026 Oregon Law Commencement Ceremony. He will speak to the Juris Doctor graduates.
The law school will confer more than one hundred thirty JD degrees at the ceremony, which begins at 3 p.m. on Saturday, May 16, 2025, at Matthew Knight Arena.
Judge Kasubhai has built a deep and exemplary record of service within Oregon’s legal community and has long supported the University of Oregon School of Law.
The United States Senate confirmed Kasubhai as US District Court Judge for the District of Oregon in November 2024, making him the first Asian American lifetime judge and third Muslim lifetime judge in our nation’s history. Before his appointment, he served as a federal magistrate judge beginning in 2018 and spent eleven years as a state circuit court judge in the Oregon Judicial Department at the Lane County Circuit Court. Earlier in his career, he practiced law in Eugene and Klamath Falls and served on the Oregon Workers’ Compensation Board.
Judge Kasubhai has also contributed to numerous initiatives strengthening the legal profession. He served on the Oregon District Court Judicial Equity Committee, the Joint State & Federal Workgroup on Unconscious Bias Education, and the Oregon South Asian Bar Association. He chaired the Attorney Admission Fund for Oregon District Court, served on the Oregon State Bar Leadership Institute Advisory Board, co-founded and led the Oregon Muslim Bar Association, and co-founded the Oregon Mediation Diversity Project.
His work has earned significant recognition, including Oregon Law’s Frohnmayer Award for Public Service in 2024, the Oregon State Bar’s Wallace P. Carson Jr. Judicial Excellence Award in 2022, and the Daniel K. Inouye Trailblazer by the National Asian/Pacific-American Bar Association and Justice Lynn Nakamoto Trailblazer by the Oregon Asian/Pacific-American Bar Association in 2018.