Federal District Courts

Federal District Court is the name of one of the courts of the United States. It is held by a judge, called the district judge. Several courts under the same name have been established by state authority. Most federal cases are initially tried and decided in the U.S. district courts, the federal courts of general trial jurisdiction. 

There are 94 district courts in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the territories of Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. With the exception of the three territorial courts, all district court judges are appointed for life by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. 

A district may itself be divided into divisions and may have several places where the court hears cases. Congress authorizes judgeships for each district based in large part on the caseload. 

In each district, the judge who has served on the court the longest and who is under 65 years of age is designated as the chief judge. The chief judge has administrative duties in addition to a caseload.