U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan was confirmed this week by the Senate to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, making her the second LGBTQ woman and the first queer mom to become a federal appellate judge.
Nathan has served as a U.S. District Court judge for the Southern District of New York since 2011, and was nominated by President Joe Biden to the appellate court last November. The Senate confirmed her Wednesday 52-45.
She will be the second lesbian on the Second Circuit (but the first lesbian mom), joining Judge Beth Robinson, who was nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate in 2021. She is also the 15th openly gay or lesbian federal judge (there are unfortunately no out bisexual or trans judges on the federal bench). The first openly LGBTQ federal judge, Deborah Batts, who served in the Southern District of New York like Nathan, was also a mother, but never sat on the Appeals Court.
A native of Philadelphia, Nathan earned her B.A. and J.D. degrees at Cornell University. She clerked at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 2000 to 2001 and for Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court from 2001 to 2002, before serving in private practice until 2006. She was also John Kerry’s associate national counsel for his presidential campaign in 2004. From 2006 until 2008, Nathan was a visiting associate professor of law at Fordham University School of Law, and was a Fritz Alexander fellow at New York University School of Law from 2008 until 2009.
She then served as special assistant to President Barack Obama and associate White House counsel until 2010, when she moved to the New York State Attorney General’s Office as a special counsel to the state’s Solicitor General. She was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President Obama in 2011. Among her many notable cases, she presided over the trial of Jeffrey Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell in 2020 to 2021.
Nathan is married to NYU Law Professor Meg Satterthwaite and they have twin sons.
Congratulations to Nathan and her family, and may she judge wisely and with justice.