President Obama Nominates Goodwin Liu for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Judge Robert N. Chatigny for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Obama nominated Goodwin Liu for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Judge Robert N. Chatigny for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Mr. Liu currently serves as an Associate Dean and Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Judge Chatigny currently serves as a U.S. District Judge for the District of Connecticut.

President Obama said, “Goodwin Liu and Robert Chatigny have proven themselves to be not only first-rate legal minds but faithful public servants.  It is with full confidence in their ability, integrity, and independence that I nominate them to the bench of the United States Court of Appeals.”

Goodwin Liu: Nominee for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Goodwin Hon Liu is an Associate Dean and Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.  An acclaimed scholar, teacher, and lawyer, with experience in both the private and public sectors, Liu is a nationally-recognized expert on constitutional law and education law and policy.  In 2009, he received Berkeley's most prestigious teaching award.

Prior to joining the Berkeley faculty in 2003, Liu was an associate at O'Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C.  He clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the October 2000 Term, and for Judge David S. Tatel on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1998-1999.  Between his clerkships, Liu served as a Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education.   He has also worked for the Corporation for National Service, where he helped launch the AmeriCorps program.

Liu was born in Augusta, Georgia, to parents who emigrated from Taiwan, and he grew up in Sacramento where he attended public schools.  Liu earned a B.S. from Stanford University in 1991, an M.A from Oxford in 2002 (where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar), and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1998.

Judge Robert N. Chatigny: Nominee for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Judge Robert Neil Chatigny has served as a U.S. District Judge for the District of Connecticut since 1994.  He was Chief Judge of the Court from 2003 to 2009.  Judge Chatigny is being nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Judge Chatigny was born in Taunton, Massachusetts, and raised in upstate New York.  He graduated from Brown University in 1973 and Georgetown University Law Center in 1978, where he was Case & Note Editor of the Georgetown Law Journal.

After graduation, Judge Chatigny served as a Law Clerk to District Judge Samuel Conti (Northern District of California), Judge José A. Cabranes (then of the District of Connecticut), and Circuit Judge Jon O. Newman (Second Circuit).  After clerking, Judge Chatigny spent two years at the law firm of Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C.  He returned to Connecticut in 1984 to start his own litigation practice.

Judge Chatigny has served on the Judicial Council for the Second Circuit and the Federal-State Judicial Council of Connecticut.  He has been active in the Oliver Ellsworth Inn of Court and the Connecticut Bar Association, including as an elected member to its House of Delegates and on the Executive Committee of its Federal Practice Section.  In 2008, he received the Children’s Justice Award from the Center for Children’s Advocacy at the University of Connecticut School of Law.