Judge (Ret.)
U.S. Court of Appeals

Judge Patricia Wald has led a legal career that has made her one of the leading figures in the legal profession in the United States as well as a champion of legal reform across the globe. Judge Wald served on the U.S. Court of Appeals fro the District of Columbia Circuit for twenty years, including five years as the Chief Judge. She is the author of over 800 judicial opinions. Her most recent judicial post was as U.S. judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague, Netherlands where she rendered significant decisions in the field of international humanitarian law.

Judge Wald received her Bachelor’s degree from Connecticut College and her law degree from Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Law Journal. She began her career as a law clerk to Judge Jerome N. Frank of the U.S. Second Circuit of Appeals. She was an associate in the Washington, D.C. firm of Arnold, Fortas & Porter, an attorney in the Office of Criminal Justice of the Department of Justice, attorney for Neighborhood Legal Services, member of the District of Columbia Crime Commission, Co-Director of the Ford Foundation’s Project on Drug Abuse, attorney with the Center for Law and Social Policy, and Litigation Director of the Mental Health Law Project.

In 1977, Judge Wald was appointed Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs in the United States Department of Justice, and in 1979 President Carter appointed her to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit where she served until her retirement in 1999. From 1999-2001, she served on the ICTY, 2002-2004 as Chair of the Open Society Justice Initiative, and since 2004 as a member of the President’s Commission on U.S. Intelligence Capabilities Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Judge Wald is a Council Member and former Fist Vice President of the American Law Institute (ALI) and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the author of Law and Poverty (1965) and co-author of Bail in the United States (1964) and Dealing with Drug Abuse (1973). She has published numerous articles on a wide-range of legal subjects.

Judge Wald is a Fellow of the American Philosophical Society and a former member of the Executive Board of the American Bar Association’s Central European and Eurasian Institute (CEEI). She received the American Bar Association Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, the Annual Award of the Environmental Law Institution and the annual Award of the International Human Rights Law Group. She has received numerous honorary degrees from Universities and Law Schools including most recently Doctor of Law, Yale University.