ABOVE: Judge Alison Nathan. Photo by 57nineteen via Wikimedia.
The U.S. Senate in a 52-45 vote on March 23 confirmed U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan’s nomination by President Joe Biden to become a judge on the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Judge Nathan is only the second openly LGBTQ woman to serve on a federal appellate court. The first is current Second Circuit Judge Beth Robinson from Vermont, who was nominated by President Biden earlier this year and confirmed by the Senate on Nov. 1, 2021.
Biden nominated Judge Nathan this past November, after receiving a recommendation from the Senate Majority Leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, (D-NY). At the time of the president’s nomination Schumer said in a statement released by his office; “Ali Nathan is an outstanding judge for the Southern District of New York and her experience, legal brilliance, love of the rule of law and perspective would be invaluable in ensuring the federal judiciary fulfills its obligation to ensure equal justice for all.”
Judge Alison J. Nathan has served as a United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York since 2011. She previously served as Special Counsel to the Solicitor General of New York from 2010 to 2011.
From 2009 to 2010, Judge Nathan served in the White House Counsel’s Office as an Associate White House Counsel and Special Assistant to the president. Judge Nathan was a Fritz Alexander Fellow at New York University School of Law from 2008 to 2009 and a Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Fordham University Law School from 2006 to 2008.
From 2002 to 2006, Judge Nathan was an associate at the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, LLP in Washington D.C. and New York. Judge Nathan served as a law clerk for United States Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens from 2001 to 2002 and for Judge Betty B. Fletcher on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 2000 to 2001.
Judge Nathan received her J.D., magna cum laude, from Cornell Law School in 2000, and her B.A. from Cornell University in 1994.
