Front Office

Christina T. Shay, Chief Assistant United States Attorney

Christina T. Shay is the Chief Assistant United States Attorney. She oversees investigations and litigation in the Criminal, National Security, and Civil Divisions, as well as the operations of the Administrative Division.

Ms. Shay started in the office in 2011. She has previously served as the Executive Assistant United States Attorney. Prior to joining the Front Office, Ms. Shay was the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division and the head of Complaints as a Deputy Chief in the General Crimes Section. From 2012 to 2016, she was a member of the Violent and Organized Crimes Section where she investigated and tried child exploitation, drug, fraud, and violent crime cases. Ms. Shay received her A.B. from Harvard College and her J.D. from NYU School of Law. Following law school, she clerked for the Honorable James Ware in the Northern District of California and for the Honorable Milan D. Smith on the Ninth Circuit. Before joining the United States Attorney’s Office, Ms. Shay was an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, & Katz in New York.

Kathy Yu, Chief of Ethics and Post-Conviction Review

Kathy Yu joined the Office in February 2016 and currently serves as Senior Litigation Counsel.  Since becoming an Assistant United States Attorney, Ms. Yu has prosecuted some of the Office’s most significant violent crime cases.  She has tried eleven cases to verdict.  Her case work includes the prosecution of a 51-defendant RICO case involving gang murders, assaults, extortion, drug trafficking, and money laundering.  During three trials that resulted from this prosecution, Ms. Yu obtained convictions against a Mexican Mafia member and five other gang members, which were subsequently affirmed on appeal.  Most recently, Ms. Yu was part of the team that charged and obtained guilty pleas from four Florencia 13 gang members and associates for murdering an LAPD officer as he shopped for a home with his girlfriend.  Ms. Yu also has extensive experience prosecuting child exploitation cases, having obtained life sentences against a predator who targeted dozens of children in the Philippines and a human trafficker who recruited and exploited children from foster homes. 

In 2020, Ms. Yu received the Los Angeles County Bar Association Prosecutor of the Year Award.  She serves on the Office’s Community Outreach and Service Committee.  Ms. Yu received her B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of California, San Diego, and her law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Order of the Coif).