Erica MacDonald currently serves as a Judge of the District Court for the First Judicial District of the State of Minnesota, a position to which she was appointed in 2009 and re-elected in 2012. Prior to her judicial appointment, Judge MacDonald served for eight years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of Minnesota, prosecuting cases involving violent crimes, narcotics, firearms, human trafficking, and child pornography. Judge MacDonald began her legal career as a judicial law clerk to U.S. District Judge James H. Alesia, of the Northern District of Illinois. After her clerkship, she worked as an associate at Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago; as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois; and as a law clerk to Judge Harriet Lansing of the Minnesota Court of Appeals in 2000. Judge MacDonald earned her B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and her J.D. from DePaul University College of Law.