Senior Leadership

Patrick Robbins
First Assistant U.S. Attorney

Patrick D. Robbins is the First Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of California. Mr. Robbins returned to the Office to assume that role on July 10, 2023. 

Mr. Robbins previously was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Office for approximately ten years. From 1995 to 2004, he prosecuted cases involving organized crime, narcotics, firearms, bank robberies, insider trading, market manipulation, and investor frauds. From 2000 to 2001, he served as Pacific Regional Coordinator for DOJ’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force and as Deputy Chief of the Narcotics Section. From 2002 to 2004, Mr. Robbins was Chief of the Securities Fraud Section and a member of the Enron Task Force, leading the Department of Justice’s investigation into criminal manipulation of the California electricity markets by Enron and others during the State’s energy crisis. 

From 2005 to 2023, Mr. Robbins was a San Francisco-based partner at the law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP, where he specialized in white collar criminal defense and investigations. Mr. Robbins received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1985, and graduated summa cum laude from the American University, Washington College of Law, in 1989. After law school, Mr. Robbins served as a law clerk to the Honorable Aubrey E. Robinson, Jr., Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. 

Kimberly Hopkins
Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney

Ms. Hopkins became the Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California on March 14, 2022. Prior to her appointment to this role, Ms. Hopkins served for nearly 10 years as a Criminal Division Assistant U.S. Attorney in the San Francisco district office, including as a member of the Asset Forfeiture section from October 2012 to January 2014, the Strike Force and Violent Crime section from January 2014 to September 2018, the Special Prosecutions and National Security section from September 2018 to July 2020, and the Corporate and Securities Fraud section from July 2020 to February 2022. Prior to joining the Northern District of California, Ms. Hopkins served for four years as an AUSA in the Violent Crime unit of the District of Arizona’s U.S. Attorney’s Office. Ms. Hopkins is a graduate of UCLA and Boston College Law School.

Martha Boersch
Chief, Criminal Division

Martha Boersch previously served for twelve years as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of California.  During her career as a federal prosecutor, she worked as Chief of the Organized Crime Strike Force (2002-2004) and the Chief of the Securities Fraud Unit (2001-2002).  She was the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s International Security Coordinator and spent a summer in Moscow for the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs. In 2009, Martha was awarded the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award, the Department of Justice’s second highest award for employee performance, for her work on a complex international money laundering prosecution involving the former Prime Minister of the Ukraine. 

After her service with the Department of Justice, Martha spent several years as a litigation partner at the international law firm of Jones Day, and then founded her own boutique defense firm with several partners. As a criminal defense lawyer, Martha represented clients in numerous federal jury and bench trials and has argued more than a dozen cases in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  Martha has deep experience in a broad range of white-collar charges, including mail and wire fraud, money laundering, economic espionage, computer fraud and abuse, racketeering, foreign bribery, antitrust, and federal forfeitures.  She also has worked extensively on international criminal matters, particularly related to former Soviet Bloc countries, such as Russia, Ukraine, and Romania.

Martha is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. She is an Order of the Coif graduate of the Berkeley School of Law and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate from the University of Oregon with a degree in Russian Language and Literature.

Michelle Lo
Chief, Civil Division

Ms. Lo has been the Chief of the Civil Division since September 2021.  Prior to serving in this role, she served as a Deputy Chief of the Civil Division since April 2018.  Prior to joining this office in 2014, she served for over five years as an AUSA in the Civil Division of the USAO for the District of Columbia from 2009 to 2014.  Ms. Lo graduated from U.C. Berkeley and the University of Minnesota Law School.