Noting Prez Biden’s appointments to balance federal judiciary with more defenders

This new Bloomberg Law piece, headlined “Biden Public Defenders Turned Judges Begin to Make Mark on Bench,” details what might be Prez Biden’s most significant legacy in his judicial nominations.  I recommend the piece in full, and here is its essential data:

Presidents who’ve prioritized diversity in their judicial appointments have historically focused on expanding the racial and gender makeup of the courts.  But in recent years, judicial advocates have also called for Democrats to appoint more lawyers who’ve represented criminal defendants and civil rights plaintiffs — legal experience that’s been historically underrepresented in the federal judiciary.

Judges who’ve predominantly worked in private practice and as federal prosecutors made up more than 70% of the appellate bench at the time of a 2020 Center for American Progress study.  That’s compared to 1% of circuit judges who spent most of their careers as public defenders or within a legal aid setting.

Biden has sought to upend that trend by making it a priority to appoint former public defenders to the federal bench at a historic pace in just one term.  According to a Bloomberg Law analysis, Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton added at least 39 and 31 ex-public defenders to the courts, respectively, but that was over two terms.

Out of his 205 life-tenured appointments, 42, or 20%, have spent part of their careers as public defenders, such as Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.  That number also includes 11 ex-public defenders to the federal circuit courts, breaking the previous record of five former public defenders appointed to those courts under Obama.