Cornelia Pillard

Pillard was born on March 4, 1961, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.{{cite web |url=http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/nominations/113thCongressJudicialNominations/upload/Pillard-Senate-Questionnaire-Final.pdf |title=Pillard's Senate Judiciary Committee Nomination Questionnaire |date=June 13, 2013 |publisher=US Senate Committee on the Judiciary |access-date=2013-11-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131107013706/http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/nominations/113thCongressJudicialNominations/upload/Pillard-Senate-Questionnaire-Final.pdf |archive-date=November 7, 2013 |url-status=dead }} Her father, Richard Pillard, was a professor of psychiatry at Boston University who was the first openly gay psychiatrist in the United States.

After graduating from the Commonwealth School in 1978, Pillard studied history at Yale University. She graduated in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude.[http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/upload/NinaPilard_res6_25_09.pdf Cornelia T.L. Pillard, Curriculum Vitae.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130612015737/http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/upload/NinaPilard_res6_25_09.pdf |date=2013-06-12 }} (reviewed May 2, 2013) From 1983 to 1984, Pillard was a researcher and office assistant in the Beijing office of the Asia bureau of Newsday. She then attended Harvard Law School, where she was an editor for the Harvard Law Review. She graduated in 1987 with a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude.

Pillard began her legal career in 1987 as a law clerk for Judge Louis H. Pollak of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Pollak was a former dean of both Yale and Penn Law Schools.Hevesi, Dennis. [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/us/louis-pollak-judge-and-civil-rights-advocate-dies-at-89.html "Louis H. Pollak, Civil Rights Advocate and Federal Judge, Dies at 89"], The New York Times. (May 12, 2012).

After her clerkship, Pillard was a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, in New York City and Washington, D.C., from 1988 to 1994.

In 1994, Pillard joined the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States, where she briefed and argued civil and criminal cases on behalf of the federal government before the U.S. Supreme Court. She joined the tenure-track faculty at Georgetown Law in 1997.

In 1998, Pillard was named Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. That office provides authoritative legal advice to the President and all the Executive Branch agencies, including review of all executive orders and orders of the Attorney General.Office of the Solicitor General of the United States, [https://www.justice.gov/osg/about-osg.html About the Office], (reviewed May 2, 2013)

Pillard returned to Georgetown Law in 2000, where she received tenure. Pillard has taught more than a dozen different courses and seminars, and frequently teaches the core civil procedure and constitutional law courses.[http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/pillard-nina.cfm Bio of Professor Nina Pillard], (reviewed May 1, 2013) Pillard also served as faculty director of Georgetown Law's Supreme Court Institute, a public service program that provides free assistance to attorneys preparing for arguments before the Supreme Court on a first-come, first-served basis.Georgetown University Law Center, [http://www.law.georgetown.edu/academics/centers-institutes/supreme-court-institute/index.cfm Supreme Court Institute], (reviewed May 2, 2013) In the 2012 term, the program held moot courts for counsel in 100% of cases argued before the Court.

Pillard supports private settlement of legal disputes through negotiation, mediation and arbitration. She serves on the Executive Committee of the board of directors of the American Arbitration Association, and has been a board member there since 2005.American Arbitration Association, [http://www.adr.org/aaa/ShowProperty?nodeId=%2FUCM%2FADRSTAGE2011201&revision=latestreleased President's Letter and Financial Statements]{{Dead link|date=July 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} (2012)

Pillard served as Chair and an active reader on an American Bar Association Reading Committee that evaluated all of the writings of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito for the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary. The committee found Alito "well qualified" to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.See [http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/scfedjud/SCpage/Alito_testimony.authcheckdam.pdf Statement of Stephen L. Tober] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140421213633/http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/scfedjud/SCpage/Alito_testimony.authcheckdam.pdf |date=2014-04-21 }} concerning the Nomination of Honorable Samuel L. Alito to be Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court before the Senate Judiciary Committee (Jan. 12, 2006)

Pillard has argued nine cases and briefed more than twenty-five cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, making her one of the nation's most prominent Supreme Court advocates.Daily Writ, [http://dailywrit.com/2012/04/top-female-advocates-before-the-supreme-court/ Top Female Advocates Before the Supreme Court] (Apr. 30, 2012) Some of her landmark victories are now staples of law school textbooks.See, e.g., Kathleen M. Sullivan & Gerald Gunther, Constitutional Law (Seventeenth Edition) (2010), at 230-231, 598, 756; Erwin Chemerinsky, Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies (Third Edition) (2006), at 307-309; 755

In the landmark case United States v. Virginia (1996), Pillard wrote the Solicitor General's brief challenging the men-only admissions policy of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI).{{cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/94-1941.ZS.html |title=United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 151 (1997) |publisher=Cornell University Legal Information Institute |date=June 26, 1996 |access-date=2013-11-21}} In a 7-1 decision, the Court held that VMI's exclusion of women violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, and that the new, separate and different Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership did not remedy the violation.

While a member of the Georgetown Law faculty, Pillard successfully defended the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) against constitutional challenge in another landmark case, Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs (2003).{{cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/01-1368.ZO.html |title=Nevada Dept. of Human Resources v. Hibbs, 538 U.S. 721 (2003) |publisher=Cornell University Legal Information Institute |date=May 27, 2003 |access-date=2013-11-21}} Pillard represented William Hibbs, a state employee who was fired when he sought to take unpaid leave to care for his injured wife under the FMLA. Pillard, together with the United States Justice Department during the administration of President George W. Bush, which intervened to defend the law, argued that state employees should be able to rely on the FMLA. In a decision by then-Chief Justice Rehnquist, the Court ruled for Hibbs and upheld the FMLA's application to state employees as a valid exercise of Congress' constitutional powers.

Representing the United States in Ornelas v. United States (1996), Pillard won a significant victory for law enforcement, leading to clearer legal guidance to federal, state, and local officials conducting searches and seizures.{{cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/95-5257.ZO.html |title=Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690 (1996) |publisher=Cornell University Legal Information Institute |date=May 28, 1996 |access-date=2013-11-21}} In an opinion by then-Chief Justice Rehnquist, the Court held that independent review of probable cause determinations by appellate courts was necessary to ensure the development and consistent application of search and seizure rules.

In other noteworthy cases representing the United States, Pillard sought robust "qualified immunity" protection of law enforcement personnel against lawsuits, shielding officials from the burdens of litigation and liability for reasonable decisions even where, in hindsight, they turned out to be wrong.{{cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/94-1244.ZO.html|title=Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299 (1996)] |last=Scalia}} She also successfully argued that the U.S. Constitution reserves the jury right in criminal cases to defendants charged with serious offenses.{{cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/95-6465.ZO.html |title=Lewis v. United States, 518 U.S. 322 (1996) |publisher=Cornell University Legal Information Institute |date=June 24, 1996 |access-date=2013-11-21}}

File:President Obama Announces Nominations to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, June 2013.webm

In May 2013, the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that Pillard was under consideration by the Obama administration to fill one of three vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.Michael D. Shear, [https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/us/politics/obama-plans-to-nominate-3-judges-for-key-court.html?pagewanted=all Obama Plans 3 Nominations for Key Court] (May 27, 2013); Juliet Eilperin, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-to-launch-push-to-reshape-dc-circuit-with-3-simultaneous-nominations/2013/05/28/8bb8fc38-c7cb-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop Obama to Launch to Reshape D.C. Circuit with 3 Simultaneous Nominations] (May 28, 2013)

On June 4, 2013, Obama nominated Pillard to serve as a United States Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to the seat vacated by Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, who assumed senior status on October 14, 2011.Associated Press, Obama nominates Millett, Pillard, Wilkins to federal appeals court in Washington, Washington Post (June 4, 2013); Michael D. Shear, [https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/us/politics/obama-to-name-3-to-top-appeals-court-in-challenge-to-republicans.html?hp Obama to Name 3 to Top Appeals Court in Challenge to Republicans], New York Times (June 4, 2013) Her nomination immediately became controversial. According to ThinkProgress, conservatives attacked her as an extremist and radical feminist, noting that a paper she had authored analogized compelled maternity to "conscription,"{{Cite web| title=Our Other Reproductive Choices: Equality in Sex Education, Contraceptive Access, and Work-Family Policy | url=http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1191&context=facpub | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100614004812/http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1191&context=facpub | archive-date=2010-06-14}} in objecting to her confirmation.{{cite web|url=http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/07/24/2347071/conservatives-gear-up-for-war-to-keep-top-womens-rights-attorney-off-the-bench/|title=Conservatives Gear Up For War To Keep Top Women's Rights Attorney Off The Bench|website=ThinkProgress|date=24 July 2013}} On September 19, 2013, her nomination was reported to the floor by the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 10–8 vote, the vote falling along party lines.{{cite web|url=https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ExecutiveBusinessMeetingResults-09-19-2013.pdf|title=Results of Executive Business Meeting - September 19, 2013}}

On November 7, 2013, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid moved to invoke cloture on Pillard's nomination, in an attempt to cut off a filibuster from Republican senators.{{cite web|title=Senate Floor Proceedings: Thursday, November 7, 2013|url=http://www.periodicalpress.senate.gov/|publisher=US Senate Periodical Press Gallery|access-date=November 21, 2013}} On November 12, 2013, the Senate rejected the motion to invoke cloture by a 56–41 vote, with 1 senator voted "present".{{cite web|url=https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=1&vote=00233|title=On the Cloture Motion (Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Nomination of Cornelia T.L. Pillard, to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the D.C. Circuit)|publisher=United States Senate|date=November 12, 2013|access-date=2013-11-21}}

After the Senate moved forward in November 2013 with a rules change eliminating the filibuster on federal appeals court nominees, the Senate on December 10, 2013, invoked cloture on Pillard’s nomination by a 56–42 vote.{{cite web|url= https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1131/vote_113_1_00255.htm|title=On the Cloture Motion (Upon Reconsideration, Motion to Invoke Cloture on the Nomination of Cornelia Pillard to be U.S. Circuit Judge)|publisher=United States Senate |date=December 10, 2013|access-date=2022-11-01}} That paved the way for a final floor vote on Pillard's nomination. Shortly before 1 a.m. on December 12, 2013, the Senate confirmed Pillard by a 51–44 vote.{{cite web|url=https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1131/vote_113_1_00256.htm|title=On the Nomination (Confirmation Cornelia T.L. Pillard, of the District of Columbia, to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit)|publisher=United States Senate|date=December 12, 2013|access-date=2022-11-01}}{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2013/12/11/senate-poised-to-pull-an-all-nighter-as-it-adjusts-to-new-rules/|title=Senate pulls an all-nighter to confirm Georgetown law professor to federal bench|newspaper=The Washington Post}} On December 17, 2013, Pillard received her federal judicial commission.{{cite web|url=https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/pillard-cornelia-thayer-livingston|title=Pillard, Cornelia Thayer Livingston - Federal Judicial Center|website=fjc.gov}}

As a judge, Pillard extended the exclusionary rule to require police to knock-and-announce when executing an arrest warrant, over a dissent by Judge Karen L. Henderson.[http://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/1112-1119-Online.pdf Recent Cases: D.C. Circuit Holds that Exclusionary Rule Applies to Evidence Obtained as Result of Knock-and-Announce Violations Committed During Execution of Arrest Warrant] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210902170432/http://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/1112-1119-Online.pdf |date=2021-09-02 }}, 129 Harv. L. Rev. 1112 (2016). Judge Pillard joined Henderson when they denied a petition by Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri to disqualify his military judges.[http://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1452-1459-Online.pdf Recent Cases: D.C. Circuit Furthers Uncertainty in Appointments Clause Test for Executive Branch Reassignments] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202113023/http://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/1452-1459-Online.pdf |date=2017-02-02 }}, 129 Harv. L. Rev. 1452 (2016). When in Meshal v. Higgenbotham (2016) Judges Janice Rogers Brown and Brett Kavanaugh threw out a claim by an American that he had been disappeared by the FBI in a Kenyan black site, Judge Pillard dissented, arguing the court should just create a new implied cause of action.[http://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/1795-1802-Online.pdf Recent Cases: D.C. Circuit Holds that U.S. Citizen Detained and Interrogated Abroad Cannot Hold FBI Agents Individually Liable for Violations of His Constitutional Rights] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210720225500/http://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/1795-1802-Online.pdf |date=2021-07-20 }}, 129 Harv. L. Rev. 1795 (2016). When Judge Pillard's panel found that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act did not violate the Constitution's Origination Clause in Sissel v. United States Department of Health & Human Services (2014), Judge Kavanaugh wrote a lengthy dissent from denial of an en banc rehearing.[http://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2003-2010-Online.pdf Recent Cases: D.C. Circuit Reaffirms that Affordable Care Act Falls Outside Scope of the Origination Clause by Denying Petition for En Banc Review] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224094819/http://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2003-2010-Online.pdf |date=2021-02-24 }}, 129 Harv. L. Rev. 2003 (2016).

Pillard is married to Georgetown law professor and current ACLU Legal Director David D. Cole and has two children, Sarah and Aidan Pillard.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

• {{cite journal | first1 = Cornelia T.L. | last1=Pillard | first2 = T. Alexander | last2 = Aleinikoff | authorlink2 = T. Alexander Aleinikoff | title = Skeptical Scrutiny of Plenary Power: Judicial and Executive Branch Decision Making in Miller v. Albright | journal = The Supreme Court Review | volume = 1998| year = 1998 | pages = 1–70 | doi=10.1086/scr.1998.3109696 | url = https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/scr.1998.3109696?journalCode=scr }}
• {{cite journal | first = Cornelia T.L. | last=Pillard | title = Taking Fiction Seriously: The Strange Results of Public Officials' Liability Under Bivens | journal = Georgetown Law Journal | volume = 88 | issue = 1 | year = 1999 | pages = 65–104 | url = https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/720/ }}
• {{cite journal | first = Cornelia T.L. | last=Pillard | author-mask=1| title = The Unfulfilled Promise of the Constitution in Executive Hands | journal = Michigan Law Review | volume = 103 | issue = 4 | year = 2005 | pages = 676–758 | url = https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol103/iss4/2/ | jstor = 30044443 }}
• {{cite journal | first = Cornelia T.L. | last=Pillard | author-mask=1| title = Unitariness and Myopia: The Executive Branch, Legal Process, and Torture | journal = Indiana Law Journal | volume = 81 | issue = 4 | year = 2006 | pages = 1297–1312 | url = https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/187/ }}
• {{cite journal | first = Cornelia T.L. | last=Pillard | author-mask=1| title = Our Other Reproductive Choices: Equality in Sex Education, Contraceptive Access, and Work-Family Policy | journal = Emory Law Journal | volume = 56 | issue = 4 | year = 2007 | pages = 941–91 | url = https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/188/ }}
• {{cite journal | first1 = Cornelia T.L. | last1=Pillard | author-mask1=1| first2 = Naomi | last2 = Mezey | authorlink2 = Naomi Mezey | title = Against the New Maternalism | journal = Michigan Journal of Gender & Law | volume = 18 | issue = 2 | year = 2012 | pages = 229–96 | url = https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjgl/vol18/iss2/1/ }}

• Barack Obama Supreme Court candidates

{{Reflist|33em}}

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• {{FJC Bio|nid=1394316}}
• {{Ballotpedia|Cornelia_T._L._Pillard|Cornelia T. L. Pillard}}
• [http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/pillard-nina.cfm# Faculty Profile for Professor Nina Pillard]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e93IVf6bOFI Nina Pillard Discusses AT&T v. Concepcion]
• [http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-11-15/constitution-today-federalism/transcript Pillard on the Diane Rehm Show]
• {{C-SPAN|1015230}}

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Category:1961 births

Category:20th-century American lawyers

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Category:21st-century American women judges

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Category:Commonwealth School alumni

Category:Georgetown University Law Center faculty

Category:Harvard Law School alumni

Category:Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit

Category:Lawyers from Cambridge, Massachusetts

Category:Living people

Category:People associated with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

Category:United States court of appeals judges appointed by Barack Obama

Category:Yale College alumni