Norton to Attend Wilkins Investiture, First Norton District Court Recommendation Promoted to U.S. Court of Appeals

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said it will be a unique pleasure to see Judge Robert L. Wilkins formally sworn in as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia today at4:30 p.m. at 333 Constitution Avenue NW. Wilkins was the first of Norton's recommendations to President Obama for a vacancy on the District Court for the District of Columbia. He is her first judicial recommendation to be promoted to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

"President Obama did not have to go any further than our own district court to find a first-rate judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals," Norton said. "Judge Wilkins quickly demonstrated such excellence on the district court here that it was clear he would be a great asset to any level of the federal judiciary."

Wilkins first developed a strong reputation as a trial lawyer at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where he tried more than 30 cases and became known as a top litigator in cutting-edge criminal and civil trials. Prior to his current service on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Wilkins was a partner at a top law firm, Venable LLP, where he worked on criminal and civil litigation and appeals. Wilkins graduated from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, cum laude, with a degree in chemical engineering in 1986, and from Harvard Law School in 1989, where he served as Executive Editor and Comment Editor of one of its law journals, and was active in the Black Law Student Association. He later clerked for a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. He was cited as one of the "90 Greatest Lawyers of the Last 30 Years" in 2008 by the Legal Times.

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 Wilkins from a number of candidates for the district court 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 seven of Norton's other recommendations for district court judges – Ketanji Brown Jackson, Amy Berman Jackson, James E. Boasberg, Rudolph Contreras, Beryl A. Howell, Casey Cooper, and Tanya Chutkan. Two other Norton recommendations, Randolph Moss and Amit Mehta, have been nominated by the President and are pending before the full Senate and the Senate Judiciary Committee, respectively.