Nina Pillard | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Judge of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | |
| Assumed office December 17, 2013 | |
| Appointed by | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | Douglas H. Ginsburg |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Cornelia Thayer Livingston Pillard (1961-03-04)March 4, 1961 (age 64) Cambridge,Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Spouse | David D. Cole |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | Yale University (BA) Harvard University (JD) |
Cornelia Thayer Livingston Pillard (born March 4, 1961), known professionally asNina Pillard, is an American lawyer and jurist serving since 2013 as aU.S. circuit judge of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Before becoming a judge, Pillard was a law professor atGeorgetown University.
Pillard served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Assistant to theUnited States Solicitor General. At the time of her confirmation to the federal bench, Pillard was a prominentU.S. Supreme Court advocate in theUnited States, having argued nine cases and briefed more than 25 cases before the Court.
Pillard's nomination to the D.C. Circuit, along with the nominations ofRobert L. Wilkins andPatricia Millett, ultimately became central to the debate over the use of thefilibuster in the United States Senate, leading to the controversial use of thenuclear option to bring it to the floor for a vote. She was confirmed by a 51–44 vote, with her detractors labeling her as one of the most liberal nominees to the federal bench in decades.[1] Pillard has been compared toRuth Bader Ginsburg for her civil rights advocacy, and has been mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee.[2]
Pillard was born on March 4, 1961, inCambridge,Massachusetts.[3] Her father,Richard Pillard, was a professor ofpsychiatry atBoston University who was the first openly gay psychiatrist in the United States.
After graduating from theCommonwealth School in 1978, Pillard studiedhistory atYale University. She graduated in 1983 with aBachelor of Arts,magna cum laude.[4] From 1983 to 1984, Pillard was a researcher and office assistant in theBeijing office of the Asia bureau ofNewsday. She then attendedHarvard Law School, where she was an editor for theHarvard Law Review.[4] She graduated in 1987 with aJuris Doctor,magna cum laude.[4]
Pillard began her legal career in 1987 as alaw clerk for JudgeLouis H. Pollak of theUnited States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.[4] Pollak was a former dean of bothYale andPenn Law Schools.[5]
After her clerkship, Pillard was a lawyer for theNAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, inNew York City andWashington, D.C., from 1988 to 1994.[4]
In 1994, Pillard joined the Office of theSolicitor General of the United States, where she briefed and argued civil and criminal cases on behalf of the federal government before theU.S. Supreme Court.[4] She joined the tenure-track faculty at Georgetown Law in 1997.[4]
In 1998, Pillard was named Deputy Assistant Attorney General for theU.S. Department of Justice'sOffice of Legal Counsel.[4] That office provides authoritative legal advice to the President and all the Executive Branch agencies, including review of all executive orders and orders of theAttorney General.[6]
Pillard returned toGeorgetown Law in 2000, where she received tenure.[4] Pillard has taught more than a dozen different courses and seminars, and frequently teaches the corecivil procedure andconstitutional law courses.[4][7] Pillard also served as faculty director ofGeorgetown Law's Supreme Court Institute, a public service program that provides free assistance to attorneys preparing for arguments before the Supreme Court on a first-come, first-served basis.[8] In the 2012 term, the program heldmoot courts for counsel in 100% of cases argued before the Court.[8]
Pillard supports private settlement of legal disputes through negotiation, mediation and arbitration. She serves on the Executive Committee of the board of directors of theAmerican Arbitration Association, and has been a board member there since 2005.[9]
Pillard served as Chair and an active reader on an American Bar Association Reading Committee that evaluated all of the writings of Supreme Court nomineeSamuel Alito for the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary. The committee found Alito "well qualified" to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.[10]
Pillard has argued nine cases and briefed more than twenty-five cases before theU.S. Supreme Court, making her one of the nation's most prominent Supreme Court advocates.[4][11] Some of her landmark victories are now staples of law school textbooks.[12]
In the landmark caseUnited States v. Virginia (1996), Pillard wrote the Solicitor General's brief challenging the men-only admissions policy of theVirginia Military Institute (VMI).[13] In a 7-1 decision, the Court held that VMI's exclusion of women violated theEqual Protection Clause of theUnited States Constitution, and that the new, separate and different Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership did not remedy the violation.
While a member of theGeorgetown Law faculty, Pillard successfully defended theFamily and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) against constitutional challenge in another landmark case,Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs (2003).[14] Pillard represented William Hibbs, a state employee who was fired when he sought to take unpaid leave to care for his injured wife under the FMLA. Pillard, together with the United States Justice Department during the administration of PresidentGeorge W. Bush, which intervened to defend the law, argued that state employees should be able to rely on the FMLA. In a decision by then-Chief JusticeRehnquist, the Court ruled for Hibbs and upheld the FMLA's application to state employees as a valid exercise of Congress' constitutional powers.
Representing the United States inOrnelas v. United States (1996), Pillard won a significant victory for law enforcement, leading to clearer legal guidance to federal, state, and local officials conducting searches and seizures.[15] In an opinion by then-Chief Justice Rehnquist, the Court held that independent review of probable cause determinations by appellate courts was necessary to ensure the development and consistent application of search and seizure rules.
In other noteworthy cases representing theUnited States, Pillard sought robust "qualified immunity" protection of law enforcement personnel against lawsuits, shielding officials from the burdens of litigation and liability for reasonable decisions even where, in hindsight, they turned out to be wrong.[16] She also successfully argued that theU.S. Constitution reserves the jury right in criminal cases to defendants charged with serious offenses.[17]
In May 2013, theNew York Times and theWashington Post reported that Pillard was under consideration by the Obama administration to fill one of three vacancies on theUnited States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.[18]
On June 4, 2013, Obama nominated Pillard to serve as a United States Circuit Judge on theUnited States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to the seat vacated by JudgeDouglas H. Ginsburg, who assumedsenior status on October 14, 2011.[19] Her nomination immediately became controversial. According toThinkProgress, conservatives attacked her as an extremist and radical feminist, noting that a paper she had authored analogized compelled maternity to "conscription,"[20] in objecting to her confirmation.[21] On September 19, 2013, her nomination was reported to the floor by theSenate Judiciary Committee by a 10–8 vote, the vote falling along party lines.[22]
On November 7, 2013, Senate Majority LeaderHarry Reid moved to invokecloture on Pillard's nomination, in an attempt to cut off afilibuster from Republican senators.[23] On November 12, 2013, the Senate rejected the motion to invoke cloture by a 56–41 vote, with 1 senator voted "present".[24]
After the Senate moved forward in November 2013 with a rules change eliminating the filibuster on federal appeals court nominees, the Senate on December 10, 2013, invoked cloture on Pillard’s nomination by a 56–42 vote.[25] That paved the way for a final floor vote on Pillard's nomination. Shortly before 1 a.m. on December 12, 2013, the Senate confirmed Pillard by a 51–44 vote.[26][27] On December 17, 2013, Pillard received her federal judicial commission.[28]
As a judge, Pillard extended theexclusionary rule to require police toknock-and-announce when executing anarrest warrant, over a dissent by JudgeKaren L. Henderson.[29] Judge Pillard joined Henderson when they denied a petition byAbd al-Rahim al-Nashiri to disqualify his military judges.[30] When inMeshal v. Higgenbotham (2016) JudgesJanice Rogers Brown andBrett Kavanaugh threw out a claim by an American that he had beendisappeared by the FBI in a Kenyan black site, Judge Pillard dissented, arguing the court should just create a newimplied cause of action.[31] When Judge Pillard's panel found that thePatient Protection and Affordable Care Act did not violate the Constitution'sOrigination Clause inSissel v. United States Department of Health & Human Services (2014), Judge Kavanaugh wrote a lengthy dissent from denial of anen banc rehearing.[32]
Pillard is married to Georgetownlaw professor and currentACLU Legal DirectorDavid D. Cole and has two children, Sarah and Aidan Pillard.[citation needed]
Media related toCornelia Pillard at Wikimedia Commons
| Legal offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Judge of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit 2013–present | Incumbent |
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