James was previously a judicial law clerk to Judge Leonard P. Stark of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Before beginning his career in law, James was a semiconductor researcher with over 25 publications. During graduate school, he was a recipient of the Intel Ph.D. Fellowship and won several best paper awards. James was also a research intern at Oracle Corporation, working on novel on-chip optical interconnects and multi-chip packaging techniques.
James is a licensed skydiver and keelboat skipper.