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American federal judge (born 1967) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Padmanabhan Srikanth "Sri" Srinivasan[1] (/ˈsriː ˌsriːniˈvɑːsən/; born February 23, 1967) is an Indian-born American lawyer and jurist serving since 2020 as the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.[2][3] Before becoming a federal judge, Srinivasan served as Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States and argued 25 cases before the United States Supreme Court. He was also a partner at the law firm O'Melveny & Myers and was a lecturer at Harvard Law School.
Sri Srinivasan | |
|---|---|
Official portrait, 2013 | |
| Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | |
| Assumed office February 11, 2020 | |
| Preceded by | Merrick Garland |
| Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | |
| Assumed office May 24, 2013 | |
| Nominated by | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | A. Raymond Randolph |
| Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States | |
| In office August 26, 2011 – May 24, 2013 | |
| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | Neal Katyal |
| Succeeded by | Ian Heath Gershengorn |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Padmanabhan Srikanth Srinivasan February 23, 1967 Chandigarh, India |
| Spouse | Carla Garrett |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | Stanford University (BA, JD–MBA) |
In 2016, Srinivasan was considered by President Barack Obama as a potential nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States after the death of Antonin Scalia;[4] Obama nominated Merrick Garland instead.
Srinivasan was born on February 23, 1967, in Chandigarh, India. His parents were Brahmin Iyer Hindu Tamils. His father, Thirunankovil Padmanabhan Srinivasan, was from Mela Thiruvenkatanathapuram, a village near Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu. Srinivasan's family first came to the United States in the late 1960s when his father was a Fulbright scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. After briefly returning to India, the family permanently immigrated to the United States in 1971 when Srinivasan was four years old.[5][6] They settled in Lawrence, Kansas, where his father became a professor of mathematics at the University of Kansas. His mother, Saroja, taught at the Kansas City Art Institute and later worked at the University of Kansas's computer science department.[7]
Srinivasan graduated from Lawrence High School in 1985, where he played on the school basketball team alongside future NBA star Danny Manning.[7] He then attended Stanford University, graduating in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction. From 1989 to 1991, Srinivasan worked as a management analyst for the San Mateo County county manager's office.[8] He then jointly attended Stanford Law School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, receiving a JD–MBA in 1995. As a law student, he was an editor of the Stanford Law Review and graduated with Order of the Coif honors.[7]
After law school, Srinivasan was a law clerk for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1995 to 1996. He did a one-year fellowship in the Department of Justice's Office of the Solicitor General from 1996 to 1997, then clerked for U.S. Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor from 1997 to 1998.[7]
From 1998 to 2002, Srinivasan was in private practice as an associate at the law firm O'Melveny & Myers. He then returned to the Office of the Solicitor General, where he worked from 2002 until 2007. He rejoined O'Melveny & Myers in 2007 as a partner, and was the firm's hiring partner for its Washington, D.C. office.[9] While at the firm, he represented ExxonMobil for accusations of human rights abuses by hired military personnel at an Indonesian gas plant.[10] In 2010, he represented former Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling in his appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court, which challenged the "honest services" fraud statute and also that Skilling's trial was never moved from Houston.[11] The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Skilling on the "honest services fraud" statute, but rejected the trial location argument.[12]
Srinivasan also was a lecturer at Harvard Law School, where he co-taught a course on Supreme Court and appellate advocacy.[9] In 2005 he received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence from the United States Department of Defense.[13]
On August 26, 2011, Srinivasan was appointed to replace Neal Katyal as Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States.[2] As of May 2013, Srinivasan had argued 25 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Earlier in his career, he also performed pro bono work for presidential candidate Al Gore during the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election.[14]
In 2013, he was part of the legal team that presented arguments before the Supreme Court against the Defense of Marriage Act in the case of United States v. Windsor.[15] He left the Solicitor General's office on May 24, 2013, when he was commissioned as a federal judge.
In March 2010, National Review blogger Edward Whelan wrote that the Obama administration had been considering nominating Srinivasan to one of two vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and that the idea of nominating Srinivasan had run into opposition from some Obama supporters because of Srinivasan's work in the U.S. Solicitor General's office during the Bush administration, and union animosity to Srinivasan's corporate clients in private practice.[16]
In June 2012, Obama nominated Srinivasan to the seat on the D.C. Circuit.[17] On January 2, 2013, his nomination was returned to the President, due to the sine die adjournment of the Senate; the next day he was renominated to the same office.[18]
His Senate confirmation hearing on April 10, 2013 was uneventful.[19] His nomination was reported out of committee on May 16, 2013, by a 18–0 vote.[20] A final vote on his nomination took place on May 23, 2013, where he was confirmed by a 97–0 vote.[6][21][22] He received his commission on May 24, 2013.[1] He took the oath of office before Chief Judge Merrick Garland in June.[23] At his formal swearing-in ceremony in September, administered by retired Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor, he took the oath on the Hindu holy book Bhagavad Gita[24] and became the first federal appellate judge of South Asian descent.[25] He became Chief Judge on February 11, 2020.[26]
In April 2013, Mother Jones suggested that Srinivasan ultimately might be nominated by President Obama for the Supreme Court of the United States;[41] during the same month, Jeffrey Toobin also opined that should he be confirmed for the D.C. Circuit, he would be Obama's next nominee to the Supreme Court.[42] If he had been nominated, he would have been the first Indian American, first Asian American and first Hindu candidate for the Supreme Court.[43]
Following the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on February 13, 2016, Srinivasan was again widely speculated to be among the most likely contenders to be appointed to fill the seat, prior to the nomination of Merrick Garland.[44][45] After Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell threatened to refuse to consider any Obama appointee to fill the seat in an election year, and split political parties in government, it was thought that Srinivasan, who was confirmed 97–0 in 2013, would be politically difficult to block, had he been nominated.[46][47]
Srinivasan lives in Arlington County, Virginia. He's married and has two children.[48]
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