Ketanji Brown Jackson: Difference between revisions

Ketanji Brown Jackson
Alma Mater	Harvard Law School

Ketanji Brown Jackson (born September 14, 1970)^[1] is an American attorney and jurist serving as a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 2021.^[2]

Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Miami, Florida, Jackson attended Harvard University for college and law school, where she served as an editor on the Harvard Law Review. She began her legal career with three clerkships, including one with U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer. Prior to her elevation to an appellate court and from 2013 to 2021, she served as a district judge on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Jackson was also vice chair of the United States Sentencing Commission from 2010 to 2014. Since 2016, she has been a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers.

On February 25, 2022, President Joe Biden announced that Jackson was his nominee for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, filling the vacancy created upon Breyer's retirement.^[3]

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Jackson worked as a staff reporter and researcher for Time magazine from 1992 to 1993, then attended Harvard Law School, where she was a supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review. She graduated in 1996 with a Juris Doctor cum laude.^[4][5]

Career

After law school, Jackson served as a law clerk to Judge Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts from 1996 to 1997, then to Judge Bruce M. Selya of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from 1997 to 1998. She spent a year in private practice at the Washington, D.C. law firm Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin (now part of Baker Botts), then clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1999 to 2000.^[4][6]

Jackson worked in private legal practice from 2000 to 2003.^[7] From 2003 to 2005, she served as an assistant special counsel to the United States Sentencing Commission.^[8] From 2005 to 2007, Jackson was an assistant federal public defender in Washington, D.C., where she handled cases before U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.^[9] A Washington Post review of cases Jackson handled during her time as a public defender showed that "she won uncommon victories against the government that shortened or erased lengthy prison terms".^[10] From 2007 to 2010, Jackson was an appellate specialist at Morrison & Foerster.^[7][6]