Marsha S. Berzon

Marsha Berzon
Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Incumbent
Assumed office March 16, 2000
Nominated by	Bill Clinton
Preceded by	John Noonan
Personal details
Born	1945 (age 65–66) Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
Alma mater	Radcliffe College University of California, Berkeley

Marsha Siegel Berzon (born 1945) is a federal appeals judge who has served on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals since 2000.

Education and legal training

Marsha Siegel Berzon graduated with a B.A. from Radcliffe College in 1966 and received her law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley in 1973. She then clerked for Judge James R. Browning of the Ninth Circuit from 1973 to 1974. Berzon then clerked for Associate Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court. She was Justice Brennan's first female law clerk.

Personal life

Berzon is the mother of Alexandra Berzon, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Las Vegas Sun.^[1]

Professional life

Berzon was in private practice in Washington, DC from 1975 to 1977 and then moved to San Francisco, California where she practiced from 1978 to 2000 at Altshuler Berzon, a union-side law firm founded by herself, her husband Stephen Berzon, and Fred Altshuler. Berzon had a unique Supreme Court litigation practice and litigated many of the landmark cases during that period. Berzon was also a lecturer at UC Berkeley in 1992 and a practitioner-in-residence at Cornell Law School in 1994.

Federal judicial service

On January 27, 1998, Berzon was nominated by Bill Clinton to the Ninth Circuit for the seat vacated when John T. Noonan took senior status in late 1996. Clinton renominated Berzon on January 26, 1999. Berzon was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a 64-34 vote on March 9, 2000 and received her commission on March 16, 2000. She is widely considered one of Bill Clinton's most liberal judicial appointees.^{[citation needed]}

In a 2009 decision, Judge Berzon wrote that while a San Francisco resolution condemning the Vatican is in line with current Establishment Clause jurisprudence, she was troubled by how close the resolution came to the establishment of an anti-Catholic stance. ^[2]

See also

• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States

External links

• Marsha S. Berzon at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.

References

1. ^ "What Happened in Vegas: A Pulitzer Shines on the Sun". 2009-04-22. http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=162263. Retrieved 2009-04-22. 
2. ^ Ninth Circuit upholds resolution urging Catholics to permit same-sex adoptions

Legal offices
Preceded by John Noonan	Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 2000–present	Incumbent

Persondata
Name	Berzon, Marsha S.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1945
Place of birth	Cincinnati, Ohio
Date of death
Place of death