Judges

Just wanted to flag an ACS blog post on women in the legal profession, citing an editorial in Tuesday’s New York Times, for anyone who didn’t get their daily dose of depressing yet. To wit:

• Women make up only 30 percent of the federal judiciary (and even fewer state judges are women). ACS notes that this dismal statistic comes thirty years after Justice O’Connor’s appointment as the first woman on the Supreme Court, and I would add that for almost twenty years, women have made up nearly half of law school classes – so there’s no lack of women in the pipeline.
• The Times editorial noted that female lawyers are paid 74% of what male lawyers are paid, and that a shocking 90% of women in the legal profession report experiencing sex discrimination.

Yesterday, the Senate confirmed Jane Triche-Milazzo to the Eastern District of Louisiana. At this point, there are 231 women serving as active federal judges, which represents just under 30% of active judges on the federal bench. The Appellate Daily blog recently posted some nifty charts showing that although men make up 49% of the population, they represent 70% of the federal judiciary. In contrast, the representation of women and minorities on the federal bench is significantly lower than their representation in the population.  And unfortunately, some of these percentages haven’t budged for awhile. Read more »

Yesterday, the Senate confirmed six judicial nominees, four of whom were women: Nannette Jolivette Brown to the Eastern District of Louisiana, Nancy Torresen to the District of Maine, Marina Garcia Marmolejo to the Southern District of Texas, and Jennifer Guerin Zipps to the District of Arizona. Not only did the confirmation of these women bring the total number of women confirmed to the federal bench during the Obama Administration to 50 (47% of all confirmed nominees), but two of these nominees broke glass ceilings in their jurisdictions – Judge Brown will be the first African-American woman on the Eastern District of Louisiana, and Judge Torreson will be the first woman to sit on the district court of Maine. Read more »

This time last month, the Senate was about to get back to work after Labor Day, and there were twenty judicial nominees ready for a vote. Clearing those twenty – some of whom had been waiting for Senate action for months – in the month of September seemed like a reasonable goal. The Senate is out of session for the remainder of this week, after it reached a compromise to keep the government funded, so we’re effectively at the end of September, as far as the Senate is concerned. So how’d the Senate do on judges? Read more »

As we’ve mentioned before, President Obama’s nominees to the federal bench demonstrate his concerted effort to increase the diversity of the federal judiciary.  As a number of articles today highlight, almost half of the nominees are women, and significant percentages are African-American or Latino, such that 70 percent of the President’s nominees are “nontraditional”.  In addition, there have been a number of openly gay nominees. Read more »

Last night, the Senate confirmed Bernice Bouie Donald to a seat on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals – adding diversity and excellence to that court. Judge Donald, who previously served as a federal district court judge in Tennessee, was confirmed by a vote of 96-2. She had the support of both home-state, Republican senators, and was voted out of the Judiciary Committee without opposition. Notwithstanding, her nomination did not receive a floor vote for four months because of the unprecedented obstruction of a minority of Senators. Read more »

This week, the Senate returns from its August recess. With all of the needs confronting the nation, it is unconscionable that because of a determined minority, included on its must-do list is a large number of unaddressedjudicial nominations that have been piling up. Despite 92 federal judicial vacancies, 37 of which are deemed judicial emergencies, the Senate left town without taking action on 20 judicial nominees, many of whom were approved without any opposition whatsoever by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and have been waiting for a Senate vote for months. Read more »

Exceptional legal talent, a dedication to public service, integrity, and total commitment to the rule of law — this is what law professor Goodwin Liu will bring to California's highest court. 

Take action today — support the nomination of Professor Goodwin Liu to the California Supreme Court.  Read more »

The following is a statement by Marcia D. Greenberger and Nancy Duff Campbell, Co-Presidents of the National Women’s Law Center, following the Senate’s vote not to invoke cloture and end debate on the nomination of Goodwin H. Liu to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.   Read more »

The National Women's Law Center just released the following press statement by NWLC Co-President Marcia Greenberger: Read more »