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The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release

President Obama Nominates Pamela Harris to Serve on the United States Court of Appeals

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, President Obama nominated Pamela Harris to serve on the United States Court of Appeals.

“Throughout her career, Pamela Harris has shown unwavering integrity and an outstanding commitment to public service,” said President Obama. “I am proud to nominate her to serve on the United States Court of Appeals.”

Pamela Harris: Nominee for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

Pamela Harris is currently a visiting professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and a senior advisor to its Supreme Court Institute. She previously served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Policy at the United States Department of Justice.

After graduating from Walt Whitman High School in Maryland, Harris received her B.A. summa cum laude from Yale College in 1985 and her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1990. After graduating from law school, she clerked for Judge Harry T. Edwards of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1990 to 1991, worked as an associate at Shea & Gardner (now Goodwin Procter LLP) in Washington, D.C. from 1991 to 1992, and clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1992 to 1993. Harris served as an attorney-adviser in the United States Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel from 1993 to 1996. From 1996 to 1999, Harris was an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School from 1996 to 1999, where she was awarded the Harvey Levin Memorial Teaching Award.

Harris joined O’Melveny & Myers LLP as counsel in 1999, where she specialized in appellate and Supreme Court litigation. She became a partner in 2005. Beginning in 2007, while still in private practice, Harris co-directed Harvard Law School’s Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Clinic and was a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center. In 2009, Harris was named the Executive Director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown, serving as Executive Director until 2010, when she joined the Office of Legal Policy. Harris returned to Georgetown in 2012.