Judge Pamela Harris Visits AUWCL as 12th Annual Jurist-in-Residence
Oct. 28, 2019
American University Washington College of Law welcomed Judge Pamela Harris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit as its 12th Annual Jurist-in-Residence Oct. 24-25, 2019.
The visiting Jurist meets informally and formally with student groups and faculty over a two day period to discuss the role of the federal appeals courts, the process of judging, the reasoning of court opinions, judicial clerkships, the confirmation process, and more.
In law school, students often read judges’ opinions and focus on “the substance of those opinions,” said Professor Stephen Wermiel, speaking to a group of 1Ls before a discussion with Judge Harris. “But don’t you stop and wonder, what was the judge thinking in this case and what influenced them, and why they decided the case the way they did? The Jurist-in-Residence program gives you an invaluable opportunity to ask some of those questions.”
Judge Harris discussed her journey into the legal profession and how her role is different than that of a judge on the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I think when we think about courts and judging, it’s really easy to think automatically of the Supreme Court,” Judge Harris said. “The Supreme Court is really different from other courts—they’re only taking the hard cases. They’re only taking cases where reasonable judges, operating in good faith, are going to disagree on the outcome. Most of our cases are judges doing the work, getting through the case, and actually going to agree because they are controlled by precedent. And what happens is, in working through those cases together, and watching your colleagues decided cases bound by precedent, you build these bonds of trust and respect—and those feelings carry over when you get to the harder cases.”
Judge Harris was appointed in 2014 by President Obama. Previously, Harris worked in private practice as a Supreme Court and appellate litigator with the firm of O’Melveny & Myers. She served twice at the U.S. Department of Justice, as principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Policy from 2010 to 2012, and as an attorney-advisor at the Office of Legal Counsel from 1993 to 1996.
Harris also taught constitutional law and criminal procedure at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the Georgetown Law Center, served as executive director of Georgetown Law Center’s Supreme Court Institute, and was a co-director of Harvard Law School’s Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Clinic. A graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, she served as a law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens of the United States Supreme Court and Judge Harry T. Edwards of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Read more: AUWCL Jurist-in-Residence Program Celebrates 10 Year Anniversary