Joyce White Vance is the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. Confirmed by the Senate on August 7, 2009, she was one of the first five U.S. Attorneys confirmed in the Obama Administration.

Ms. Vance is a member of Attorney General Eric Holder’s Advisory Committee (AGAC), a national panel that advises the Attorney General on policy, management, and operational issues affecting the U.S. Attorneys' offices. Ms. Vance is co-chair of the AGAC’s newly formed Criminal Procedure subcommittee and is a member of the Civil Rights and Office Management and Budget subcommittees.

Prior to her appointment as U.S. Attorney, Ms. Vance served for five years as chief of the Appellate Division in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Alabama. Before that, she was a prosecutor in the Appellate Division for three years and a prosecutor in the Criminal Division for ten years. Ms. Vance was involved in the investigation of and served as lead prosecutor for a wide range of cases involving white collar fraud, bank fraud, firearms trafficking, arson, explosives, civil rights, and drugs. She also handled a number of appeals before the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, some of which were critical in exploring the continuing vitality of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the nature of reasonableness in federal sentencing.

Ms. Vance graduated from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and from the University of Virginia School of Law. After law school, she practiced with the litigation group at Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin, and Kahn in Washington, D.C. Ms. Vance moved to Birmingham in 1987, where she joined Bradley, Arant, Rose and White (now Bradley, Arant, Boult, Cummings) as a litigation associate. She joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 1991.

Ms. Vance is a member of the Alabama and Birmingham Bar Associations. She served most recently on the Grievance Committee for the Birmingham Bar. She also is a Master in the Birmingham Inn of Court, an organization dedicated to promoting ethics and professionalism among lawyers and judges through mentoring and educational programs.

Ms. Vance is a frequent lecturer and speaker to community and legal groups. In November 2009, she testified before the U.S. Sentencing Commission about the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Booker, a landmark case in federal criminal sentencing.