Norton District Court Recommendation, Tanya Chutkan, Approved by Senate Judiciary Committee

WASHINGTON, DC – The office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) announced that Tanya Chutkan’s nomination to become a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia was approved today by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Chutkan, whose nomination was recommended to President Obama by Norton, is expected to be confirmed by the full Senate. Chutkan would be the second African American woman appointed to the district court here in 32 years, only the third to ever serve, and the second currently on the bench, joining Ketanji Brown Jackson, another Norton recommendation.

“Tanya Chutkan’s broad criminal and civil legal experience and professional reputation will make her a very able addition to our distinguished bench,” said Norton. “The full Senate should now be able to move quickly to confirm Tanya Chutkan, and I have every confidence they will do so.”

Chutkan is currently a partner at the law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, where the focus of her practice is complex civil litigation, especially antitrust class actions, but also white collar criminal defense and corporate investigations. Before joining Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP in 2002, Chutkan was a trial attorney and supervisor at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, and had worked at the law firms Donovan, Leisure, Rogovin, Huge & Schiller and Hogan & Hartson LLP (now Hogan Lovells). Chutkan is a graduate of George Washington University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she served as an Assistant Editor of the law review.

President Obama, like President Clinton, granted Norton senatorial courtesy to recommend candidates for federal district court judges and other important federal law enforcement officials in the District. The Congresswoman recommended Chutkan from a number of candidates screened by her Federal Law Enforcement Nominating Commission, chaired by Pauline Schneider, a special counsel at Ballard Spahr LLP and a former president of the D.C. Bar. President Obama has nominated and the Senate has confirmed all seven of Norton’s other recommendations for district court judges – Ketanji Brown Jackson, Amy Berman Jackson, James E. Boasberg, Rudolph Contreras, Beryl A. Howell, Robert L. Wilkins and Casey Cooper, who was confirmed yesterday. Wilkins now serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Published: March 27, 2014