Marsha S. Berzon

Marsha Berzon
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Incumbent
Assumed office March 16, 2000
Appointed by	Bill Clinton
Preceded by	John Noonan
Personal details
Born	April 17, 1945 Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
Alma mater	Harvard University UC Berkeley School of Law

Marsha Siegel Berzon (born April 17, 1945) is a federal appeals judge who has served on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals since 2000.^[1]

Education and legal training

Marsha Siegel Berzon graduated with a B.A. from Harvard College in 1966 and received her law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley in 1973. While at law school, Berzon was a contributor to the California Law Review. 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.^[2]

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.

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.^[3]

In October 2014, Judge Berzon joined an opinion that held same sex marriage bans in Idaho and Nevada violated the U.S. Constitution. She wrote a concurring opinion concluding that the prohibitions were not only discrimination based upon sexual orientation, but a form of gender discrimination and therefore subject to heightened scrutiny.^[4]

See also

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

References

1. Bernan Press; Federal Judicial Center (2001). Biographical Directory of the Federal Judiciary. Bernan Press. ISBN 9780890592588. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
2. "What Happened in Vegas: A Pulitzer Shines on the Sun". 2009-04-22. Retrieved 2009-04-22.
3. "JURIST - Paper Chase: Ninth Circuit upholds resolution urging Catholics to permit same-sex adoptions". web.archive.org. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
4. "UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT, No. 14-35420, D.C. No. 1:13-cv-00482-CWD" (PDF). 7 October 2014. Retrieved 2015-04-12.

External links

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