Honorable Judge Christopher P. Yates

Judge Christopher Yates was appointed to the Kent County (Michigan) Circuit Court on April 22, 2008. He has served in both the Criminal/Civil Division and the Family Division of that court. He currently runs the specialized business docket for the court. Judge Yates received a BA from Kalamazoo College in 1983, and a JD and an MBA from the University of Illinois in 1987. As an attorney, Judge Yates served as a law clerk to a federal trial-court judge and a federal appellate judge, as a federal prosecutor in Detroit, as an attorney-advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, as Chief Federal Public Defender for the Western District of Michigan, and as a partner in two private law firms.