Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law's Seventh Annual Wm. Matthew Byrne, Jr. Judicial Clerkship Institute
March 15 - 17, 2007
Judicial Faculty
The Honorable Carol Bagley Amon
United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York Judge Amon was a member of the Judicial Committee on Codes of Conduct from 1993 to 2001 and chair from 1998 to 2001. She is currently serving as an advisor to the American Bar Association Joint Commission to Evaluate the Model Code of Judicial Conduct. She is a graduate of William and Mary and the University of Virginia School of Law. Judge Amon has served on the district court bench since 1990. Prior to that time, she served as a United States magistrate, a trial attorney for the United States Department of Justice, and an assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
The Honorable John D. Bates
United States District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Bates graduated from Wesleyan University in 1968 and received a JD from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1976. From 1968 to 1971, he served in the United States Army, including a tour in Vietnam. Judge Bates clerked for Judge Roszel C. Thomsen of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland from 1976 to 1977 and was an associate at Steptoe & Johnson from 1977 to 1980. He served as an assistant United States attorney for the District of Columbia from 1980 to 1997. Prior to his appointment to the United States District Court in 2001, Judge Bates served as deputy independent counsel for the Whitewater investigation and then joined the Washington law firm of Miller & Chevalier.
The Honorable Karen Owen Bowdre
United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama Judge Bowdre received her bachelor's degree, cum laude, from Samford University and her law degree, cum laude, from Cumberland School of Law. She taught at Cumberland School of Law from 1990 until she took office in November 2001. Judge Bowdre was director of the legal research and writing program at the school and taught courses in insurance law, torts, professional responsibility, and appellate advocacy. Prior to joining the law faculty, Judge Bowdre practiced law with the Birmingham law firm of Rives & Peterson, handling numerous trial and appellate matters in state and federal court.
The Honorable Charles R. Breyer
United States District Court for the Northern District of California Judge Breyer received his A .B. in 1963 from Harvard College and his JD in 1966 from Boalt H all School of Law. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Breyer clerked for Oliver J. Carter, chief judge, U .S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He then served as an assistant district attorney in S an Francisco until 1973, when he was appointed assistant special prosecutor, Watergate Special Prosecution force. He entered private practice in 1974, specializing in the defense of white collar criminal cases. Judge Breyer is also an adjunct professor at Hastings College of the Law. He was appointed to the U .S. District Court for the Northern District of California on November 12, 1997, by President Clinton.
The Honorable Nanette K. Laughrey
United States District Court for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri Judge L aughrey received her bachelor's degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and her JD from the University of Missouri at Columbia. She has served as an assistant and deputy attorney general for the State of Missouri and as a municipal judge for the C ity of Columbia. From 1983 to 1996 she was a faculty member at the U MC Law School, where she served as the William H . Pittman Professor of Law. She has been a member of the Eighth Circuit Model Jury Instruction Committee, the Electronic Case Filing Committee, and the Local Rules Committee of the Western District of Missouri. She is a current member of the American Law Institute.
The Honorable Gerald E. Rosen
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan Judge Rosen served as a legislative assistant to United States Senator Robert P. Griffin of Michigan from 1974 to 1979. At the same time, he attended George Washington Law School and graduated in 1979. He received his undergraduate degree from Kalamazoo College. Prior to taking the bench in 1999, Judge Rosen was a senior partner in the law firm of Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone. He is the coauthor of Federal Civil Trials and Evidence (1999) and is the senior editor of West's Michigan Practice Guides. Judge Rosen teaches evidence as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Detroit Law School and Wayne State University.
The Honorable Pamela Ann Rymer
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Judge Rymer brings experience on both the district court (1983-89) and the circuit court (1989-present) to the Byrne Institute. She has served on the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals, the Federal Judicial Center's Committee on Appellate Judge Education, the Judicial Conference of the United States Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction, and the Ad Hoc Committee on Gender-Based Violence. In 1990 she served as the chair of the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference. She is a graduate of Vassar College and Stanford University School of Law, and was a partner with two Los Angeles law firms prior to moving to the district court bench.
The Honorable Sonia Sotomayer
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Judge Sotomayer graduated, summa cum laude, from Princeton University in 1976, and received her JD from Yale Law School, where she served as editor of the Yale Law Journal. She began her legal career as an assistant district attorney in New York County and then practiced with the law firm of Pavia & Harcourt. Appointed in October 1992 as a United States district court judge for the Southern District of New York, she was elevated to the United States Court of Appeals in October 1998. Judge Sotomayer is a member of the American Bar Association, the New York City Chapter of the Women's Bar Association, the National Hispanic Bar Association, the Puerto Rican Bar Association, the Association of Hispanic Judges, and the American Philosophical Society.
The Honorable Wesley W. Steen
United States Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of Texas Judge Steen is a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States Committee on the Administration of the Bankruptcy System and chairs its Subcommittee on Automation. He is also a member of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, sits on the Board of Governors, and is president of the American Bankruptcy Institute. Judge Steen received his B.A. with distinction in English from the University of Virginia and his JD from the Louisiana State University Law School, where he was a member of the Order of the Coif, Louisiana Law Review and the Student Bar Association Board of Governors.
The Honorable Maureen A. Tighe
United States Bankruptcy Court, Central District of California Judge Tighe is a bankruptcy judge for the Central District of California, currently sitting in Woodland H ills. Prior to her appointment to the bench in 2003, she was the United States trustee for the Central District of California for five years. Judge Tighe has served as an assistant United States attorney in Los Angeles, specializing in the prosecution of financial crime, including bankruptcy and consumer frauds. Prior to that, she was in private practice in New York and clerked for U .S. District Court Judge Harold Ackerman in Newark, New Jersey. Judge Tighe received her B.A. with highest honors from Douglass College and her JD from Rutgers Law School-Newark with high honors, where she was editor-in-chief of the Rutgers Law Review.
Academic Exchange
Erwin Chemerinsky
Alston and Bird Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law Professor Chemerinsky regularly lectures to judges in programs for the Federal Judicial Center, the National Judicial College, and the American Bar Association. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and Harvard Law School. He was on the USC faculty for over 20 years. He is the author of three books: Interpreting the Constitution (1987), Federal Jurisdiction (1999), and Constitutional Law (1997), and over 75 law review articles. He writes a regular column on the Supreme Court for California Lawyer, the Los Angeles Daily Journal, and Trial Magazine.
Douglas W. Kmiec
Caruso Family Chair in Law and Professor of Law, Pepperdine Caruso School of Law Professor Kmiec served as head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice, where among other responsibilities he assisted President Reagan in the selection of federal judges. He is the author of numerous books and scholarly articles, including the following with Northwestern legal historian Stephen Presser: The American Constitutional Order(2004), Individual Rights and the American Constitution(1998), and The History, Philosophy and Structure of the American Constitution(2004). The contributing editor for constitutional law for the ABA's Supreme Court Preview, Professor Kmiec is a frequent commentator for the national media.
Thomas D. Rowe, Jr.
Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law A native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Professor Rowe was a Rhodes Scholar and commenced his professional career as a law clerk in the Supreme Court of the United States. He joined the Duke Law faculty in 1975 and served as associate dean from 1981 to 1984 and as senior associate dean from 1995 to 1996. He has also worked as an attorney with a private firm in Los Angeles, and been a visiting scholar at the Rand Corporation's Institute for Civil Justice. He has written in the fields of civil procedure, complex litigation, judicial remedies, and constitutional law.
Nadine Strossen
Professor of Law, New York Law School Nadine Strossen, has written, lectured and practiced extensively in constitutional law, civil liberties and international human rights. Since 1991, she has served as president of the American Civil Liberties Union, the first woman to head the nation's oldest and largest civil liberties organization. Strossen's more than 250 published writings have appeared in many scholarly and general interest publications. Her book, Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights, was named by the New York Times a Notable Book of 1995. Strossen graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College in 1972 and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1975.
Jonathan D. Varat
Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles Jonathan D . Varat has been a teacher and scholar of constitutional law and the federal courts for the past 30 years at the UCLA School of Law. He served twice as associate dean of the law school and as its dean from 1998 to 2003. Professor Varat received both his B.A. in 1967 and JD in 1972 from the University of Pennsylvania. Thereafter he served as a law clerk for Judge Walter R . Mansfield of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Justice Byron R. White of the United States Supreme Court. Professor Varat is the coauthor of five editions of the frequently used casebook, Constitutional Law: Cases and Materials, the most recent of which was published in 2005 (with William Cohen and Vikram Amar).
The Honorable Kim Mclane Wardlaw
Judge Wardlaw was appointed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals by President Clinton on August 3, 1998. She was appointed to the United States District Court for the Central District of California by President Clinton on December 26, 1995. Before joining the district court, Judge Wardlaw was a litigation partner of the international law firm O'Melveny & Myers. While in private practice, Judge Wardlaw served in various offices of the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles, the Women Lawyers Public Action Grant Foundation, and the Association of Business Trial Lawyers. Judge Wardlaw graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA with an A.B. in Communication Studies in 1976. She obtained her JD in 1979 from UCLA Law School, where she was awarded Order of the Coif and named Outstanding Graduate of the Class of 1979. Upon graduation, she clerked for the late Honorable William P. Gray of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.
Guest Speaker
Akhil Reed Amar
Southmayd Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale Law School Professor Amar is considered by many to be the most outstanding constitutional law scholar of his generation. As an undergraduate he attended Yale College, where he majored in history and economics, won many prizes, earned a perfect grade point average, and was a star debater. L ter, as a student at Yale Law School, he served as editor of the Yale Law Journal. Professor Amar is the author of several distinguished scholarly books and law review articles, and is one of the most frequently quoted academics in America. His most recent book is American Constitution: A Biography (Random House 2005).