- Patricia Wald
" Patricia Wald "Patricia McGowan Wald (born
September 16 ,1928 ) is an American judge. Wald served as the chief judge for theUnited States Court of Appeals for theDistrict of Columbia Circuit and served as a judge on theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia .Wald graduated from
Connecticut College in 1948 and earned her law degree fromYale Law School in 1951. Following her graduation, she clerked for judge Jerry Frank for a year; during that year, Frank ruled on the appeal of the espionage conviction ofEthel and Julius Rosenberg . She briefly entered private practice, only to leave for a number of years to help raise her five children.Wald returned to the legal profession full-time in 1968, working in the field of public interest law for a decade. A Democrat, she served as Assistant Attorney General for legislative affairs during much of the Carter administration before being appointed by Carter to the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on April 30,1979. She was confirmed by the Senate on July 24, 1979, and received her commission on July 26, 1979. She remained on the court until 1999 and served as its chief judge from 1986 to 1991.Retiring from the U.S. courts, Wald was the
United States 's representative to theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia . She currently chairs the board of directors of the Open Society Justice Initiative and is a member of the board of directors forMental Disability Rights International .On
6 February 2004 , Wald was appointed to theIraq Intelligence Commission , an independent panel tasked with investigating U.S. intelligence surrounding theUnited States '2003 invasion of Iraq and Iraq'sweapons of mass destruction .
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