David J. Hickton was nominated for United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania by President Barack Obama on May 20, 2010, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 5, 2010. He was sworn in as the District's 57th U.S. Attorney on August 12, 2010.

Prior to becoming U.S. Attorney, Mr. Hickton co-founded Burns, White & Hickton LLC in 1987. From 1983 to 1987 he was an Associate Attorney at Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote. He practiced in the areas of transportation, litigation, commercial and white collar crime. Mr. Hickton began his legal career serving as a Law Clerk for the Honorable United States District Judge Gustave Diamond from 1981 to 1983. For more than a decade, Mr. Hickton was an Adjunct Professor of Law at Duquesne University School of Law where he taught Antitrust.

Mr. Hickton is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers, and a Fellow of the Academy of Trial Lawyers of Allegheny County. He has been selected as one of the Best Lawyers in America and also as a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer. Mr. Hickton has been admitted before the United States Supreme Court, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania and several of the U.S. Circuit Courts.

Previously, Mr. Hickton was involved in a wide range of community activities, and has long been an active supporter of and participant in organizations which benefit children and the arts. He is a past Executive Board Member of the Pittsburgh Public Theater, and served as its President. Mr. Hickton also was a longtime member of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, a non-profit organization that uses arts and culture to reinvigorate the Downtown.

His nomination as United States Attorney marks Mr. Hickton’s second Presidential appointment. From 1999 to 2001, Mr. Hickton served on the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts at the request of then-President Bill Clinton.

Hickton is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.