Judge Richard C. Tallman currently serves as an active United States Circuit Judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, with chambers in Seattle. Judge Tallman was nominated by President William J. Clinton on October 21, 1999, unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on May 24, 2000, and appointed by the President on May 25, 2000. He began his duties on June 30, 2000. From 2007 to 2011, Judge Tallman served as the Chair of the Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules for the Judicial Conference of the United States. On January 27, 2014, he was appointed by Chief Justice John G. Roberts to a seven-year term on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.
After receiving a J.D. from Northwestern School of Law in 1978, Judge Tallman began his legal career as a law clerk to United States District Judge Morell E. Sharp, Western District of Washington. From 1979 to 1983, he served as a federal prosecutor, first with the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and then as an Assistant United States Attorney in Seattle. From 1983 to 1989, he was an associate and later a partner at Schweppe, Krug, Tausend & Beezer, P.S. He was a member of Bogle & Gates, P.L.L.C. from 1990 to 1999, where he chaired the White Collar Criminal Defense Practice Group, and a partner in the Seattle firm of Tallman & Severin LLP from 1999 to 2000. At all three firms, he handled complex commercial litigation involving business issues collateral to white collar criminal matters. In his 22 years of legal practice prior to his judicial service, Judge Tallman tried more than three dozen civil and criminal cases and argued 15 cases on appeal.