Nandor Vadas

Nandor Joseph Vadas is a United States Magistrate Judge for the Northern District of California. He was appointed as a part-time magistrate in July 2004 and as a full-time magistrate in August 2009. Vadas is also a member of the Magistrate Advisory Group to the U.S. Judicial Conference.

After graduating from UC Santa Cruz, he attended Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, receiving his J.D. in 1982. He was admitted to the California bar the same year and was hired in 1983 as a deputy district attorney for San Francisco. In 1989, he left the district attorney's office and became an Assistant United States Attorney. In 1998, he moved from San Francisco to the federal magistrate court in Eureka, California as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney. Because of the part-time nature of the court, he returned to state service as a deputy district attorney. When grant funding for the position ended in May 2004, he was laid off. In July, he was appointed as a part-time magistrate judge by the District Court, with a renewable term of four years. Located in a rural area, the courthouse offered minimal services, generally handling a sporadic calendar of infractions and misdemeanors. To clear the multitude of civil rights lawsuits filed by inmates in Pelican Bay State Prison, he started an early settlement program focused on speedily resolving such matters. The District Court considered the program a success, expanding the program to all state prisons in the district. Implementation was not just limited to the Northern District as the program also included some prisons in the Eastern District of California.

As a result of his work and additional responsibilities, the magistrate position was upgraded to full-time in August 2009, with Vadas being reappointed for an eight-year term.