President Obama Nominates Catherine Friend Easterly for the District of Columbia Court of Appeals

WASHINGTON – Today, President Obama nominated Catherine Friend Easterly for the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

President Obamasaid, “Catherine Easterly has proved herself to be not only a first-rate legal mind but a faithful public servant.  It is with full confidence in her ability, integrity, and independence that I nominate her to the bench of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.”

Catharine Friend Easterly:  Nominee for the District of Columbia Court of Appeals
Catharine “Kate” Friend Easterly is an attorney in the Special Litigation Division of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. She litigates complex, recurring criminal justice issues in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. In addition, Ms. Easterly litigates civil suits, habeas petitions, and appeals arising from these matters in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She has filed numerous amicus briefson behalf of the Public Defender Service and others in the Supreme Court of the United States. She also works closely with the Public Defender Service’s General Counsel and Legislative Counsel on legislative and policy matters. Before joining the Public Defender Service, in 2003, Ms. Easterly was an associate at the New York law firm of Stillman & Friedman, P.C. (now Stillman, Friedman & Schechtman, P.C.). She also worked as an appellate public defender, first at the Legal Aid Society of Nassau County and later at the Office of the Appellate Defender in New York City. Ms. Easterly has a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude and with distinction in History, from Yale College, and earned her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.