Profiles of those put forward
President Barack Obama on Tuesday chose three well-regarded lawyers to fill three open seats on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals: U.S. District Judge Robert Wilkins, Georgetown law professor Cornelia Pillard and Supreme Court litigator Patricia Millett.
• Wilkins, 50, graduated from Harvard Law School in 1989, two years before Obama. In 1992, he was the lead plaintiff in a “racial profiling” suit against the Maryland state police that ended with a landmark settlement. Obama nominated him to be a federal district judge, and he was confirmed in 2010.
• Millett, 49, is an appellate specialist who has argued 32 cases in the Supreme Court, the second-highest total among female lawyers. In many of them she was representing the Justice Department as an assistant U.S. solicitor general.
• Pillard, 52, also worked as an assistant U.S. solicitor general at the Justice Department and spent five years as an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. As a member of the Georgetown faculty, she defended the constitutionality of the Family and Medical Leave Act against a challenge brought by state officials.