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Judge Anthony J. Scirica was appointed to the United States
District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. In 1987 President Reagan appointed him
to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit where he served
as Chief Judge from 2003 to 2010.
Judge Scirica received his Bachelor’s
degree with honors from Wesleyan University in 1962 and his J.D. from the
University of Michigan School of Law in 1965. He studied civil law at
Central University in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1966 as a Fulbright Scholar.
Before Judge Scirica was appointed to the bench, he practiced law at the
firm of McGrory, Scirica, Wentz, Fernandez and Albright in Norristown,
Pennsylvania. He also served as Assistant District Attorney in Montgomery
County, Pennsylvania.
From 1971 to 1979 Judge Scirica served in
the Pennsylvania House of Representatives where he chaired the Judiciary
Subcommittee on Crime and sponsored legislation including the divorce code,
the comparative negligence act, the investigative grand jury act, the
sentencing guidelines act, and amendments to the probate code. He was chair
of the Pennsylvania Sentencing Commission and chair of the Governor’s
Commission to Investigate Hostage Crisis at Graterford Correctional
Institution. He was elected to the Court of Common Pleas in Montgomery
County, Pennsylvania, in 1980 and served there until his appointment to the
federal bench in 1984.
Judge Scirica has served the Judicial
Conference of the United States in different roles. He was a member of the
Advisory Committee on Civil Rules and chaired the Judicial Conference Mass
Torts Working Group. He also was a member of the Judicial Panel on
Multidistrict Litigation. From 1998 to 2003 he was chair of the Standing
Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, and from 2008 to 2010 was
chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference.
Judge Scirica has issued a number of
noteworthy rulings, including:
In re: Hydrogen Peroxide Antitrust Litigation, 552 F. 3d 305 (3rd Cir.
2008) This decision provides clarification with respect to the standard for
class certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 in the context
of antitrust litigation. The decision announces three key aspects of the
class certification procedure: (1) each requirement of Rule 23 must be
established by a preponderance of the evidence, not simply a “threshold
showing”; (2) district courts must “resolve all factual or legal disputes
relevant to class certification, even if they overlap with the merits”; and
(3) expert testimony proffered by both parties is part of the relevant
evidence district courts must consider.
In re: Prudential Insurance
Company America Sales Practice Litigation Agent Actions,
148 F. 3d 283 (3rd Cir. 1998)
In this complex appeal, the Court reviewed the district court’s approval of
the settlement of a nationwide class action lawsuit, involving over eight
million claimants alleging deceptive sales practices against Prudential Life
Insurance Company. In a comprehensive decision, the Court confronted
numerous issues, including whether the district court had jurisdiction over
the class action, whether that court correctly certified the class, whether
the settlement was fair and reasonable, and whether the court correctly
calculated attorneys’ fees. Ultimately, the Court affirmed the district
court’s approval of the class certification and settlement, but remanded on
the issue of attorneys’ fees.
In re:
Combustion Engineering, Inc., 391 F.3d 190 (3rd Cir. 2004) In
Combustion Engineering the Court vacated the district court’s order
confirming the pre-packaged bankruptcy plan of Combustion Engineering, Inc.,
which would have permitted the company and certain affiliates to obtain a
“channeling injunction” under 11 U.S.C. § 524(g) shielding them from future
asbestos-related liability by diverting all future asbestos-related personal
injury claims against them to a post-confirmation trust. In a thorough and
wide-ranging opinion, the Court addressed the myriad jurisdictional and
substantive issues presented on appeal, including the notable question of
whether a non-debtor that contributes assets to a post-confirmation trust
can “cleanse itself of non-derivative asbestos liability.”
Judge Scirica has
shared his knowledge and experience with others and has taught at several
universities. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania
Law School where he co-teaches courses in civil procedure and civil
litigation. He also teaches at Duke University School of Law and Penn
State-Dickinson School of Law. He was the inaugural chair of Temple
University Law School’s Board of Visitors.
Judge Scirica is a
member of the American Law Institute and served as an adviser to the
Principles and Rules of Transnational Civil Procedure Project and the
Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation Project.
He is married to
Susan Morgan Scirica. Their son Benjamin and his wife Christina have two
children, Sofia and Luca, and their daughter Sara and her husband Michael
Gilman have two children, Josephine and Anna. |
Judge Ann Claire Williams began her
career as a music and third grade teacher in the inner city schools of
Detroit, Michigan, after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in
elementary education from Wayne State University and a master’s degree
in guidance and counseling from the University of Michigan, obtained
while working full-time. She received her law degree from the University
of Notre Dame, and then clerked for Judge Robert A. Sprecher of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She was an
Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago from 1976 to 1985 and
ultimately became chief of the Organized Drug Enforcement Task Force,
making her the first African-American woman criminal division chief in
that office.
In 1985, President Ronald Reagan
appointed Judge Williams as a United States District Court Judge in the
Northern District of Illinois. Only 35, she was one of the youngest
persons ever appointed to a federal judgeship and was the first
African-American woman appointed to a district court in the Seventh
Circuit. In 1999, President William J. Clinton appointed Judge Williams
to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, making
her the first judge of color on that court and the third
African-American woman to serve on any federal appeals court.
Judge Williams has a long history of
service to the judiciary. After just five years on the bench, she began
teaching case management skills to each new class of federal district
court judges at the Federal Judicial Center, and did so from 1990 to
1997. In 1990 she became a member of the Court Administration and Case
Management Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States.
She chaired it from 1993 to 1997. In 1999, Judge Williams became the
first African-American to serve as president of the Federal Judges
Association, which represents more than 900 federal judges and works to
preserve the independence of the federal judiciary. From 2005 to the
present, she has served on the Supreme Court Fellows Program Commission.
In 2009, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Judge Williams to serve on
the Judicial Branch Committee of the Judicial Conference.
Judge Williams has committed herself
to public interest work and expanding the pipeline for minorities and
women. In 1977, she cofounded Minority Legal Education Resources, which
has helped over 4,000 lawyers pass the Illinois bar at a rate that
equals or exceeds the annual passage rate. In 1987, she helped found the
Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Chicago. In 1991, Judge Williams’s
order in In
re Folding Carton (N.D. Ill. 1991) directed $2.3 million in cy
pres funds to create a public interest post-graduate legal
fellowship program administered by Equal Justice Works. To date, more
than 800 lawyers have received fellowships and law school tuition
repayment assistance, allowing them to provide underrepresented
populations effective access to the judicial system. Judge Williams
remains actively involved in these organizations.
In 1992, Judge
Williams co-founded the Just The Beginning Foundation(“JTBF”), an
organization initially created to celebrate the integration of the
federal judiciary that has evolved into a pipeline organization to
encourage students of color and other under-represented groups to pursue
legal careers. JTBF’s activities include annual Summer Legal Institutes
held in locations across the country that provide middle and high school
students from diverse backgrounds with practical tools to help prepare
them for legal careers. Judge Williams continues to chair JTBF’s
Judicial Advisory Board and participates in most programs that take
place in the Chicago area. JTBF also works to provide judicial
externship and clerkship opportunities for law students; she is working
with the Judicial Resources Committee of the Judicial Conference of the
United States to expand such opportunities.
Judge Williams
has a long-standing commitment to legal education and training both in
the United States and abroad. She has traveled to Ghana, Kenya, Liberia,
Rwanda, and Uganda to train judges and lawyers on topics such as
judicial ethics, case management, alternative dispute resolution, and
trial advocacy. In 2006, Judge Williams co-led a conference on
constitutional law and law reform in Nairobi, Kenya. Later that year, at
the invitation of the Chief Justice of Kenya, Judge Williams became the
first non-Kenyan judge to attend and address the Kenyan Judicial
Colloquium, an annual four-day gathering of the Kenyan judiciary. Judge
Williams returned to the Colloquium in 2007, 2008, and 2010. In 2007,
Judge Williams also spearheaded the first Kenyan Women’s Trial Advocacy
Program, which, in partnership with Lawyers Without Borders, teaches
advocacy skills to lawyers and judges who work on cases involving
domestic and gender violence. Judge Williams returned to Kenya in 2008
and 2009 to lead that program again. Judge Williams has also served as a
member of international training delegations teaching trial and
appellate advocacy at the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda in
Arusha, Tanzania, and for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague.
Judge Williams
has taught with the National Institute for Trial Advocacy for over
thirty years. In addition, she judges moot court competitions at law
schools across the country, and has served as an adjunct professor and
instructor in many programs for federal judges, practicing attorneys,
and law students. She serves on the Board of Trustees of the University
of Notre Dame, the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, Equal Justice
Works, Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, and on the Judicial
Advisory Board of the Just The Beginning Foundation. She is also on the
Steering Committee of the Avon Global Center for Women and Justice at
Cornell Law School. Judge Williams is a member of the Delta Sigma Theta
sorority.
Among many
awards and honorary degrees, she has received the Chicago Lawyer
Person of the Year Award (2000), the Arabella Babb Mansfield Award from
the National Association of Women Lawyers (2005), and the American Bar
Association Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement and the National
Bar Association’s Gertrude E. Rush Awards (2008).
Judge Williams
resides in Chicago with her husband, David Stewart. She has a son,
Jonathan, and a daughter, Claire. |
