Merrick Garland Nominated to SCOTUS

Pictured above, Chief Judge Garland at ALI’s 2013 Annual Meeting where he presented the Henry J. Friendly Award to Judge William H. Webster.

ALI member Merrick Brian Garland, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, has been nominated by President Obama to succeed Associate Justice Antonin Scalia to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Chief Judge Garland was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals in April 1997 and became Chief Judge on February 12, 2013. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1974 and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1977. Following graduation, he served as law clerk to Judge Henry J. Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and to U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. From 1979 to 1981, he was Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States. He then joined the law firm of Arnold & Porter, where he was a partner from 1985 to 1989 and from 1992 to 1993. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1989 to 1992, and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1993 to 1994. From 1994 until his appointment as U.S. Circuit Judge, he served as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, where his responsibilities included supervising the Oklahoma City bombing and UNABOM prosecutions.

Chief Judge Garland has published in the Harvard Law Review and Yale Law Journal, taught at Harvard Law School, and served as President of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University. He is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States.

Chief Judge Garland was elected to The American Law Institute in 1998. He was nominated by Patricia M. Wald, former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia; William T. Coleman, Jr., former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation; and Judge Michael Boudin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. 

Click here to watch ALI Council member Seth P. Waxman of WilmerHale discuss Chief Judge Garland's nomination on PBS. 

Watch the below video of Chief Judge Merrick B. Garland presenting the Henry J. Friendly Award to Judge William H. Webster at ALI’s 2013 Annual Meeting.

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