Professor Amy Barrett Nominated to Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit

Amy Coney Barrett, Diane and M.O. Miller, II Research Chair in Law and Professor of Law, was nominated today to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit by President Donald Trump.

“Amy is an outstanding professor, scholar, and colleague,” said Nell Jessup Newton, Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School. “She will be an excellent judge.”

Barrett teaches and researches in the areas of federal courts, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation. Her scholarship in these fields has been published in leading journals, including the Columbia, Virginia, and Texas Law Reviews.

From 2010-2016, she served by appointment of the Chief Justice on the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. She has been twice selected by students as “Distinguished Professor of the Year.”

Before joining the Notre Dame faculty in 2002, Barrett clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court. As an associate at Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin in Washington, D.C., she litigated constitutional, criminal, and commercial cases in both trial and appellate courts.

Barrett earned her J.D., summa cum laude, from Notre Dame in 1997, where she was a Kiley Fellow, earned the Hoynes Prize, the Law School’s highest honor, and served as executive editor of the Notre Dame Law Review. She earned her B.A. in English literature, magna cum laude, from Rhodes College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Barrett has served as a visiting associate professor and John M. Olin Fellow in Law at the George Washington University Law School and as a visiting associate professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law.

She and her husband, Jesse Barrett, ’99 J.D., have seven children.