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2nd Circuit Judges' Biographical Information

(Note that there are only 2 judges here who have IPR experience: Pierre N. Leval and Sonia Sotomayor)


Biographical information: Dennis Jacobs

Dennis Jacobs is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He became Chief Judge on October 1, 2006. At the time of his appointment in 1992, he was a partner in the New York law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

Judge Jacobs received his B.A. degree from Queens College of the City University of New York in 1964; his M.A. degree from New York University in 1965; and his J.D. degree from the New York University School of Law in 1973.

Judge Jacobs was a lecturer in the English Department of Queens College of the City University of New York from 1967 until 1969. He was in private practice from 1973 with the New York law firm of Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, serving as a partner there from 1980 until his judicial appointment.

Since 1997, Judge Jacobs has been a member of the Committee on Judicial Resources of the Judicial Conference of the United States; since 1999, he has been chair of that committee.

Judge Jacobs is a native of New York City.











Biographical information: Wilfred Feinberg

Wilfred Feinberg is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of his appointment in 1966, he was a United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York. He was chief judge of the circuit court 1980-88. He assumed senior status in 1991.

Judge Feinberg received his B.A. degree from Columbia University in 1940. He receive his LL.B. in 1946 from Columbia Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review .

Judge Feinberg served in the U.S. Army from 1942 until 1945. He was law clerk to United States District Court Judge James P. McGranery of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 1947 until 1949. He was in private law practice in New York from 1949 until 1961, except for service as Deputy Superintendent of Banks, State of New York, in 1958. He received a recess appointment as District Judge of the Southern District of New York in 1961, and permanent appointment to that position the following year.

Judge Feinberg is a native of New York. He is married and has three children.













Biographical information: James L. Oakes

James L. Oakes is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He served as Chief Judge of that Court from January 1, 1989 to July 1, 1992, and assumed senior status July 1, 1992. At the time of his appointment to that Court in 1971, he was a United States District Court Judge for the District of Vermont.

Judge Oakes received his B.A. degree from Harvard University in 1945, and his LL.B. from Harvard Law School in 1947, where he was a member and officer of the Harvard Law Review.

He was law clerk for Judge Harrie B. Chase of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1947 until 1948. After a year as a private law practitioner in San Francisco, he resumed his duties as a law clerk for Judge Chase one additional year, until 1950. Judge Oakes then took up the private practice of law in Brattleboro, Vermont until 1966. During this period he also served in other capacities: as Counsel for the Vermont Statute Revision Commission from 1957 to 1960; as Special Counsel to the Vermont Public Service Commission from 1959 to 1960; and as a Vermont State Senator from 1961 until 1965. In 1967, Judge Oakes became Attorney General of Vermont, a position he held until 1969, when he returned to private law practice in Brattleboro. The following year he became a United States District Court Judge for the District of Vermont.

Judge Oakes is a member of the American Law Institute, the American Judicature Society, and the Institute of Judicial Administration. He is also a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He is a past president of the Vermont Bar Association and Vermont Trial Lawyers’ Association, as well as a past member of the Vermont Board of Bar Examiners.

Judge Oakes has been honored with the Learned Hand Award of the Federal Bar Council (1983); the William J. Brennan Award of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (1992) ;the Gold Medal Award of the New York State Bar Association (1992); the Edward Weinfeld Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Administration of Justice of the New York County Lawyers’ Association (1992); the Louis Dembitz Brandeis Award of Brandeis University (1991); the Distinguished Public Service Award of the New York County Lawyers’ Association (1991); and the Environmental Law Institute Award (1989).

He holds Honorary Degrees from New England College, Suffolk Law School, and Vermont Law School, the latter of which he served as a Trustee for 17 years. Judge Oakes is a native of Springfield, Illinois.











Biographical information: Jon O. Newman

Jon O. Newman is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He assumed senior status in 1997. At the time of his appointment in 1979, he was a United States District Court Judge for the District of Connecticut.

Judge Newman received his B.A. degree from Princeton University in 1953, and his LL.B. degree from Yale Law School in 1956.

Judge Newman served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1954 until 1962. Following his graduation from law school, he was a law clerk for Judge George T. Washington of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. From 1957 to 1958, he was senior law clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren of the United Sates Supreme Court. Judge Newman returned to Connecticut in 1958 to engage in private law practice in Hartford. In 1960, he was appointed Special Counsel to Governor Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut. The next year he became Executive Assistant to Mr. Ribicoff in the latter’s new position as U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. In 1963, after Secretary Ribicoff had been elected United States Senator from Connecticut, Judge Newman became his Administrative Assistant. From 1964 until 1969, Judge Newman was the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut. He returned to private law practice in Hartford in 1969, at which he remained until taking up service in 1971 as a United States District Court Judge for the District of Connecticut.

He is married, has three children and two grandchildren, and lives in West Hartford, Connecticut.











Biographical information: Amalya L. Kearse

Amalya L. Kearse is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of her appointment in 1979, she was a partner in the New York law firm of Hughes, Hubbard & Reed.

Judge Kearse received her B.A. degree from Wellesley College in 1959, and her J.D. degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1962.

She practiced law with the New York firm of Hughes, Hubbard & Reed from 1962 to 1979, becoming a partner in 1969. She also served as an adjunct lecturer at the New York University School of Law from 1968 to 1969.

In 1979, Judge Kearse became the first woman to be elected to a fellowship in the American College of Trial Lawyers. She was a member of the University of Michigan Law School Committee of Visitors from 1971 to 1979.

Judge Kearse is a native of Vauxhall, New Jersey.











Biographical information: Richard J. Cardamone

Richard J. Cardamone is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of his appointment in 1981, he was an Associate Justice of the Appellate Division, Fourth Department, State of New York. He assumed senior status in 1993.

Judge Cardamone received his B.A. degree from Harvard University in 1948 and his LL.B. from the Syracuse University College of Law in 1952.

Judge Cardamone served in the U.S. Navy from 1943 until 1946. He was engaged in the private practice of law from 1952 until 1962 in Utica, New York. He became a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York in 1963, where he remained until 1981, including ten years as Associate Justice of the Appellate Division, Fourth Department beginning in 1971.

Judge Cardamone served as a member of the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct from 1977 until 1981; and was President of the New York State Association of Supreme Court Justices from 1977 until 1978.

Judge Cardamone is a native of Utica.











Biographical information: Ralph K. Winter

Judge Winter was appointed United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit on December 10, 1981 and entered on duty January 5, 1982. He received a B.A. degree from Yale College in 1957 and an LL.B. degree from Yale Law School in 1960. He served as a law clerk to Judge Caleb M. Wright, Chief Judge, U.S. District Court, Delaware, 1960-61, and to Judge Thurgood Marshall, U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, 1961-62.

Judge Winter was a full-time member of the Yale Law School Faculty from 1962 until entering judicial service. At the time of his appointment, he was the William K. Townsend Professor of Law. He was also a Consultant to the Subcommittee of Separation of Powers, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate from 1968 to 1972, a Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institute, Washington, D.C. from 1968 to 1970, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow from 1971 to 1972 and an Adjutant Scholar, American Enterprise Institute from 1972 to 1981.

He served from 1987 to 1992 as a member of the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules. He served as Chair of the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on the Rules of Evidence from 1992 to 1996. From July 1, 1997 to September 30, 2000, Judge Winter served as Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In April 1998, he was appointed to the Executive Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference. From October 1999 to September 2000, he served as Chair of the Executive Committee. On October 1, 2000, he took Senior Judge status.

Judge Winter has received the Connecticut Law Review Award, Honorary Doctors of Law from Brooklyn Law School and New York Law School, the Federal Bar Council’s Learned Hand Award for Excellence in Federal Jurisprudence, and the Yale Law School’s Association’s Award of Merit.









Biographical information: Roger J. Miner

Roger J. Miner is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He assumed senior status in 1997. At the time of his appointment in 1985 he was a United States District Judge in the Northern District of New York.

Judge Miner received his B.S. degree from the State University of New York and his LL.B. degree cum laude from New York Law School - where he served as Managing Editor of the Law Review - in 1956.

Judge Miner served on active duty as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps from 1956 until 1959 and later was promoted to Captain, JAGC in the U.S. Army Reserve. He was in private law practice from 1959 until 1975 in Hudson, New York. During this period, he also served as Corporation Counsel for the City of Hudson (1961-1964), Assistant District Attorney of Columbia County (1964), and District Attorney of Columbia County (1968-1975). In 1976, Judge Miner was elected a Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, Third Judicial District, a position in which he served until his appointment as a United States District Judge for the Northern District of New York in 1981.

Judge Miner is also an Adjunct Professor at Albany Law School, a position he has held since 1997. He was formerly an Adjunct Professor at New York Law School from 1986 to 1996.

Judge Miner is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Practicing Law Institute. He also holds honorary degrees from New York Law School (1989), Syracuse University (1990), and Albany Law School (1996).

Judge Miner is a native of Hudson, New York.











Biographical information: John M. Walker, Jr.

John M. Walker, Jr. is a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of his appointment to the Court in 1989, he was a United States District Judge in the Southern District of New York.

Judge Walker received his B.A. degree from Yale University in 1962, and his J.D. degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1966.

Judge Walker served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves from 1963 until 1967. From 1966 until 1968, he was State Counsel to the Republic of Botswana under the aegis of an Africa-Asia Public Service Fellowship. Judge Walker was a private law practitioner in New York from 1969 to 1970. From 1970 to 1975 he served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Criminal Division, Southern District of New York. In 1975 he returned to private law practice with the New York firm of Carter, Ledyard & Milburn, where he was initially an associate and later a partner. In 1981 Judge Walker became Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, responsible for policy in law enforcement, regulatory, and trade matters, and with oversight of the Customs Service, Secret Service, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the Office of Foreign Assets Control. Judge Walker remained in this position until 1985, when he became a United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York.

Judge Walker has served as Special Counsel to the U.S. Administrative Conference (1987-1992); president of the Federal Judges’ Association (1993-1995); and member of the Budget Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States (1991-1999). He has been a Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School since 2000; an Adjunct Professor at NYU Law School since 1996; and Director and on the faculty of NYU Law School’s Institute of Judicial Administration and Appellate Judges Seminar since 1992. Judge Walker has also been a Director of the U.S. Association of Constitutional Law since 1997. Judge Walker is married with a daughter and three stepsons.









Biographical information: Joseph M. McLaughlin

Joseph McLaughlin is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He assumed senior status in 1998. At the time of his appointment in 1990, he was a United States District Court Judge in the Eastern District of New York.

Judge McLaughlin received his B.A. degree from Fordham College in 1954, and his LL.B. from the Fordham University School of Law in 1959. He also earned an LL.M. from the New York University School of Law in 1964, and was awarded the LL.D. degree by Mercy College and Fordham University.

Judge McLaughlin was a Captain in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1955 to 1957. From 1959 unti11961, he was in private law practice with the New York firm of Cahill, Gordon & Reindel. He joined the faculty of the Fordham University School of Law in 1961, where he remained until 1981 , serving as Dean from 1971 until becoming a United States District Judge in the Eastern District of New York in 1981. He was an adjunct professor at Fordham University from 1981 to 1990. He also served as an adjunct professor at St. John's University Law School from 1982 to 1997.

Judge McLaughlin is the co-author of Peterfreund and McLaughlin, Cases and Methods on New York Practice. He is the author of Practice Commentaries for McKinney's New York CPLR and the PLI Monograph on Evidence. He is also the editor-in-chief of Federal Practice Guide (Matthew Bender), and of Weinstein’s Evidence (Matthew Bender).

He served as Chair of the New York State Law Revision Commission from 1975 to 1982.

Judge McLaughlin is a native of Brooklyn.











Biographical information: Pierre N. Leval

Pierre Leval is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of his appointment in 1993, he was a United States District Court Judge in the Southern District of New York.

Judge Leval received his B.A. degree from Harvard College in 1959 and his J.D. degree magna cum laude in 1963 from the Harvard Law School, where he served as Note Editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Judge Leval served in the U.S. Army in 1959. He was a law clerk for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1963 until 1964. Judge Leval was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 1964 until 1968, serving there as Chief Appellate Attorney from 1967 to 1968. From 1969 until 1975, Judge Leval was in private law practice as an associate and then a partner in the New York firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. He joined the New York County District Attorney’s Office in 1975, where he served first as First Assistant District Attorney, and subsequently as Chief Assistant District Attorney. In 1977, he was appointed to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Judge Leval is a member of the Adjunct Faculty of the New York University School of Law. He was awarded the Hillmon Memorial Fellowship by the University of Wisconsin in 1988; the Donald R. Brace Memorial Lectureship by the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. in 1989; the Fowler Harper Memorial Fellowship by Yale Law School in 1992; the Melville Nimmer Lectureship by UCLA Law School in 1997; the Learned Hand Medal of the Federal Bar Council in 1997; and the University of Connecticut School of Law's Intellectual Property Keynote Lectureship for 2001. He assumed Senior Judge status in 2002.

Judge Leval is a native of New York.











Biographical information: Guido Calabresi

Judge Calabresi was appointed United States Circuit Judge in July, 1994, and entered into duty on September 16, 1994. Prior to his appointment, he was Dean and Sterling Professor at the Yale Law School where he began teaching in 1959. He continues to serve as a member of that faculty as Sterling Professor Emeritus and Professorial Lecturer.

Judge Calabresi received his B.S. degree, summa cum laude, from Yale College in 1953, a B.A. degree with First Class Honors from Magdalen College, Oxford University, in 1955, an LL.B. degree, magna cum laude, in 1958 from Yale Law School, and an M.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University in 1959. A Rhodes Scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif, Judge Calabresi served as the Note Editor of the Yale Law Journal, 1957-58, while graduating first in his law school class.

Following graduation, Judge Calabresi clerked for Justice Hugo Black of the United States Supreme Court. He has been awarded more than thirty honorary degrees from universities in the United States and abroad, and is the author of four books and over eighty articles on law and related subjects.

Judge Calabresi is a member of the Connecticut Bar.











Biographical information: José A. Cabranes

José A. Cabranes was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1994. At the time of his appointment, he was Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, a court to which he was appointed in 1979.

Judge Cabranes was born in 1940 in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, and at the age of five moved with his family to the South Bronx. After attending public schools in New York City, he graduated from Columbia College (A.B., 1961), Yale Law School (J.D., 1965) and the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England (M.Litt. in International Law, 1967). He studied at Cambridge under a Kellett Research Fellowship from Columbia College and the Humanitarian Trust Studentship in Public International Law from the Faculty Board of Law of the University of Cambridge.

Judge Cabranes was serving as General Counsel of Yale University when appointed to the federal bench in 1979; he was the first Puerto Rican appointed to the federal bench in the continental United States. Previously he had practiced in a New York City law firm; taught law on the full-time faculty of Rutgers University Law School and the adjunct faculty of Yale Law School; and served as Special Counsel to the Governor of Puerto Rico and as head of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico's office in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Citizenship and the American Empire (Yale University Press, 1979), a legislative history of the United States citizenship of the people of Puerto Rico, and co-author (with Kate Stith) of Fear of Judging: Sentencing Guidelines in the Federal Courts (University of Chicago Press, 1998)(Certificate of Merit of the American Bar Association, 1999), and articles in various law journals.

Judge Cabranes served as a trustee of Yale University from 1987 to 1999, and now serves as a trustee of Columbia University. He is also a former trustee of Colgate University. He has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

In 1988, Judge Cabranes was one of five Federal judges appointed by Chief Justice Rehnquist to the 15-member Federal Courts Study Committee created by Act of Congress “to examine problems facing the Federal courts and develop a long-range plan for the future of the Federal judiciary.”

He was the recipient of the Learned Hand Medal for Excellence in Federal Jurisprudence of the Federal Bar Council in 2000.

Before his appointment to the federal bench, Judge Cabranes served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of two major Hispanic civil rights organizations: Aspira of New York, the educational agency that helps inner-city Hispanic youth prepare for college, and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (of which he was a founding member).









Biographical information: Chester J. Straub

Chester J. Straub is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of his appointment in 1998, he was a partner in the New York law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

Judge Straub received his B.A. degree from St. Peter’s College in 1958, and his LL.B. degree from the University of Virginia Law School in 1961.

Judge Straub served as a First Lieutenant in U.S. Army Intelligence and Security from 1961 to 1963. In 1963, he began the private practice of law with Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where he became a partner in 1971, and where he remained until his appointment as a Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1998. Judge Straub’s private practice was concentrated in litigation, regulatory agencies and governmental affairs. During this period he also served as a New York State Assemblyman from 1967 until 1972 and as a New York State Senator from 1973 until 1975. He also served as a mediator/neutral evaluator in the District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and as a special master for the New York State Supreme Court in the 1st Judicial Department.

Judge Straub was Chair of Gov. Mario Cuomo’s New York Statewide Judicial Screening Committee from 1988 until 1994 and of the First Department Screening Committee from 1983 until 1994. He was a member of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s Judicial Selection Committee from 1976 until 1998.

Judge Straub serves as a member of the Lenox Hill Hospital Board of Trustees, the Cardinal’s Committee of the Laity for Catholic Charities of New York, and the Kosciusko Foundation.

Judge Straub is a native of Brooklyn.











Biographical information: Rosemary S. Pooler

Rosemary S. Pooler is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of her appointment in 1998, she was a United States District Judge for the Northern District of New York.

Judge Pooler received her B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1959, an M.A. in History from the University of Connecticut in 1961, and her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1965. She also attended the Program for Senior Managers in Government of Harvard University in 1978, and earned a Graduate Certificate in Regulatory Economics from the State University of New York at Albany in 1978.

Judge Pooler engaged in the private practice of law in Syracuse from 1966 until 1972. She served as Assistant Corporation Counsel/Director of the Consumer Affairs Unit for the City of Syracuse from 1972 to 1973. From 1974 to 1975, Judge Pooler was a District Representative on the Common Council of the City of Syracuse. From 1975 until 1980 she was Chair and Executive Director of the Consumer Protection Board of the State of New York. She served as a member of the New York State Public Service Commission from 1981 until 1986. In 1987, Judge Pooler was Staff Director of the Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions of the New York State Assembly. She was Visiting Professor of Law at Syracuse University from 1987 until 1988, and was Vice-President for Legal Affairs of the Atlantic States Legal Foundation from 1989 until 1990. In 1990, she became a Justice of the Supreme Court, Fifth Judicial District, State of New York, and served in this position until becoming a United States District Judge for the Northern District of New York in 1994.

Judge Pooler is a native of the City of New York.









Biographical information: Robert D. Sack

Robert D. Sack is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of his appointment in 1998, he was in private law practice as a partner in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

Judge Sack received his B.A. degree from the University of Rochester in 1960, and his LL.B. degree from Columbia Law School in 1963.

Judge Sack was law clerk for Judge Arthur Lane of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey from 1963 until 1964. He went into the private practice of law in 1964 with the New York firm of Patterson, Belknap & Webb, which later became Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, initially as an associate and later as a partner. During 1974 he took time from his practice to serve as Associate Special Counsel and Senior Associate Special Counsel for the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry. In 1986, Judge Sack joined the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher as a partner, a position at which he remained until his appointment as a Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1998.

Judge Sack is the author of Sack on Defamation: Libel, Slander, and Related Problems (3rd edition, 1999), and he is the co-author of Advertising and Commercial Speech: A First Amendment Guide (1999). Most recently, his article, Protection of Opinion Under the First Amendment: Reflection on Alfred Hill, “Defamation and Privacy Under the First Amendment,” was published in the 100th Anniversary issue of the Columbia Law Review.

Judge Sack is a director of the William F. Kerby and Robert S. Potter Fund, which assists in funding the legal defense of journalists abroad. He is a member of the advisory boards of the Bureau of National Affairs’ Media Law Reporter and the American Bar Association Forum Committee’s Communications Lawyer. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of the Columbia Law School, and he was a member of the Board of Trustees of Columbia University Seminars on Media and Society. He was Chair of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. He is also a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School. A member of the American Bar Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the American Judicature Society, he is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

Judge Sack is a native of Philadelphia.





Biographical information: Sonia Sotomayor

Since October 7, 1998, Sonia Sotomayor has been a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. From October 2, 1992 until her recent appointment, she served as a United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York.

Judge Sotomayor began her legal career in 1979 as an Assistant District Attorney in New York County. In 1984 and until her first judicial appointment, she practiced with the law firm of Pavia & Harcourt as an associate and later partner. Her focus at the firm was on intellectual property issues and international litigation and arbitration of commercial and commodity export trading cases. She also served as a member of the Second Circuit Task Force on Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts and was formerly on the Board of Directors of the State of New York Mortgage Agency, the New York City Campaign Finance Board, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Maternity Center Association.

After graduating from Princeton University summa cum laude in 1976, Judge Sotomayor attended Yale Law School. At Yale, she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and managing editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. In 1999, Judge Sotomayor received an Honorary Doctor of Law Degree from Herbert H. Lehman College and in 2001 she received Honorary Doctor of Law Degrees from Princeton University and Brooklyn Law School. Judge Sotomayor is also an Adjunct Professor at New York University School of Law since 1998 and a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School since 1999.

Judge Sotomayor is a member of the American Bar Association, the New York City Chapter of the Women’s Bar Association, the National Hispanic Bar Association, the Puerto Rican Bar Association and the Association of Hispanic Judges. Judge Sotomayor is a frequent speaker and panelist at bar conferences and law schools.

Judge Sotomayor is a native of the Bronx and is fluent in both English and Spanish.









Biographical information: Robert A. Katzmann

Robert A. Katzmann is a United Stated Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of his appointment in 1999, he was Walsh Professor of Government, Professor of Law and Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University; a Fellow of the Governmental Studies Program of the Brookings Institution); and president of the Governance Institute (a nonprofit organization concerned with the nexus between law, institutions, and policy).

A lawyer and a political scientist by training, Judge Katzmann received his A.B. (summa cum laude) from Columbia College, A.M. and Ph.D degrees in government from Harvard University, and a J.D. from the Yale Law School, where he was an Article and Book Review Editor of the Yale Law Journal. After clerking on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for Judge Hugh H. Bownes, he joined the Brookings Institution Governmental Studies Program, where from 1981-99, he was a research associate, senior fellow, visiting fellow, and acting program director. He is the author of Regulatory Bureaucracy: The Federal Trade Commission and Antitrust Policy (MIT Press, l980; paperback with new afterword, l98l), Institutional Disability: The Saga of Transportation Policy for the Disabled (Brookings, l986), co-editor of Managing Appeals in Federal Court (Federal Judicial Center, l988), editor and contributing author of Daniel Patrick Moynihan: The Intellectual in Public Life (Johns Hopkins, 1998), and editor and contributing author of Judges and Legislators: Toward Institutional Comity (Brookings, l988). Judge Katzmann completed another volume of his own essays on the subject of interbranch relations, Courts and Congress (Brookings/Governance, 1997). His work on interbranch relations began at the invitation of the U.S. Judicial Conference Committee on the Judicial Branch, then chaired by Judge Frank M. Coffin. Judge Katzmann also directed a project on the legal profession and public service, entitled The Law Firm and the Public Good (Governance/Brookings 1995).

He has written articles on a variety of subjects, including regulation, judicial-congressional relations, disability, the administrative process, court reform, and the war powers resolution. He has offered courses on administrative law, constitutional law, and the judiciary. Apart from Georgetown, he has taught at N.YU. School of Law, U.C.L.A. (Washington D.C. program), and in the fall of 1992 was the Wayne Morse Professor of Law and Politics at the University of Oregon.

Judge Katzmann has been a board director of the American Judicature Society, a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, and a vice-chair of the Committee on Government Organization and Separation of Powers of the ABA Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. He has also been a consultant to the Federal Courts Study Committee. He served as co-chair of the FTC transition team, and as special counsel to Senator Moynihan on the confirmation of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He has also been chair of the Section on Legislation of the American Association of Law Schools.

He is recipient of the American Political Science Association's Charles E. Merriam Award (2001), "given to a person whose published work and career represents a significant contribution to the art of government through the application of social science research."





Biographical information: Barrington D. Parker

Barrington D. Parker is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of his appointment in 2001, Judge Parker was a United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York.

Judge Parker received his B.A. degree from Yale College in 1965 and his LL.B. degree from Yale Law School in 1969.

Judge Parker was law clerk to Judge Aubrey Robinson of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia from 1969 to1970. He then went into private law practice in New York in 1970, serving first at Sullivan & Cromwell until 1977, then as a partner at Parker, Auspitz, Neesemann & Delehanty, P.C. from 1977 to 1987, then as a partner at Morrison & Foerster from 1987 until his appointment in 1994 as a United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York.

Judge Parker is a Successor Trustee and member of the Yale Corporation.

Judge Parker is a native of Washington, D.C..















Biographical information: Reena Raggi

Reena Raggi is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of her appointment in 2002, she was a United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York.

Judge Raggi earned her B.A. degree in 1973 from Wellesley College and her J.D. degree cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1976.

She was law clerk to Judge Thomas E. Fairchild of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1976 to 1977. From 1977 to1979 she was in private law practice as an associate with the New York law firm of Cahill, Gordon & Reindel. She served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York from 1979 to 1986, including assignments as Chief of the Narcotics Division (1982 to 1984), and Chief of the Special Prosecutions Division (1984 to 1986). Also in 1986, she served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York under an interim court appointment. Later that year, she resumed the private practice of law as a partner in the New York firm of Windels, Marx, Davies & Ives. She remained there until her appointment in 1987 as a United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York.









Biographical information: Richard C. Wesley

Richard C. Wesley is a Judge of the United Sates Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. At the time of his appointment in 2003, he was a Judge of the New York Court of Appeals.

Judge Wesley received his B.A. degree summa cum laude from the State University of New York at Albany in 1971, and his J.D. degree from Cornell Law School in 1974.

Judge Wesley engaged in the private practice of law from the time of his admission to the New York Bar in 1975 until 1986. During three years of that period, 1979 until 1982, he also served as assistant counsel and chief legislative aide to New York Assembly Minority Leader James L. Emery. In 1982, Judge Wesley was himself elected to the Assembly - and was re- elected in 1984 - representing Livingston, Allegany and Ontario Counties.

In 1986, Judge Wesley was elected to a 14-year term as a Justice of the New York Supreme Court from the Seventh Judicial District. He served as Supervising Judge of that district's criminal courts from 1991 to 1994. In 1994 he was appointed by Governor Mario Cuomo to the Supreme Court Appellate Division, Fourth Department. In 1997, he was appointed a Judge of the New York Court of Appeals by Governor George Pataki, a position he held until joining the Federal judiciary.















Biographical information: Peter W. Hall

Judge Hall was nominated by George W. Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on December 9, 2003, to a seat vacated by Hon. Fred I. Parker (deceased);

Confirmed by the Senate on June 24, 2004, and received commission on July 7, 2004.

Judge Hall received his B.A. with honors in English, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1971; his M.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1975; and J.D., cum laude, from Cornell Law School in 1977.

Judge Hall was Law clerk, Honorable Albert W. Coffrin, U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont, 1977-1978. He was Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of Vermont, 1978-1982 and First Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of Vermont, 1982-1986. He engaged in the Private Practice of law in Vermont, 1986-2001. He served as President, Vermont Bar Association, 1995-1996. Judge Hall was elected as a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers in 1997. Just prior to his appointment to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, he was the U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont, 2001-2004.











Biographical information: Debra Ann Livingston

Judge Livingston was appointed United States Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit on May 17, 2007 and entered on duty June 1, 2007. Prior to her appointment she was the Paul J. Kellner Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where she also served as Vice Dean from 2005 to 2006. Judge Livingston joined the Columbia faculty in 1994. She continues to serve as a member of that faculty as the Paul J. Kellner Professor.

Judge Livingston received her B.A., magna cum laude, in 1980 from Princeton University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received her J.D., magna cum laude, in 1984 from Harvard Law School, where she was an editor on the Harvard Law Review. Following law school, she served as a law clerk to Judge J. Edward Lumbard of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Judge Livingston was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 1986 to 1991 and she served as a Deputy Chief of Appeals in the Criminal Division from 1990 to 1991. She was an associate with the New York law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison from 1985 to 1986 and again from 1991 to 1992, when she elected to pursue an academic career. Judge Livingston was a member of the University of Michigan’s Law School faculty from 1992 until 1994.

Judge Livingston is a co-author of the casebook, Comprehensive Criminal Procedure, and has published numerous academic articles on legal topics. She has taught courses in evidence, criminal law and procedure, and national security and terrorism. From 1994 to 2003, Judge Livingston was a Commissioner on New York City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board.