Alison Nathan

Alison Julie Nathan (born June 18, 1972) is an American lawyer who has served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit since 2022.

Nathan was born on June 18, 1972, in Philadelphia.

Nathan was raised in northwest suburban Philadelphia.

While at university, Nathan studied philosophy and Japanese.

Nathan earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1994 from Cornell University, where she was a member of the Quill and Dagger society.

She taught English in Japan from 1994 to 1995, then was an editor of an English-language newspaper in Bangkok from 1995 to 1996.

She later attended Cornell Law School, where she was editor-in-chief of the Cornell Law Review.

She graduated in 2000 with a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude.

In a New York Times obituary of Judge Deborah Batts, Nathan remembered Batts as an inspiration.

Nathan also wrote in a tribute to Justice John Paul Stevens that "When I review work from my law clerks, I will often leave a supportive note like the ones he left me and my co-clerks: 'Nice job. Just a few fly specks.

From 2000 until 2001, Nathan served as a law clerk for Ninth Circuit judge Betty Binns Fletcher.

From 2001 until 2002, Nathan served as a law clerk for Justice John Paul Stevens of the United States Supreme Court.

From 2002 until 2006, Nathan served as an associate in the New York and Washington, D.C. offices of the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.

During the 2004 presidential campaign season, she was John Kerry's associate national counsel on the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign.

From 2006 until 2008, Nathan served as a visiting associate professor of law at Fordham University School of Law.

Nathan was also Fritz Alexander fellow at the New York University School of Law from 2008 until 2009.

As an Adjunct Professor of Clinical Law at NYU, her academic focus was on "civil procedure, federal courts, habeas, and the constitutionality of the U.S. death penalty system."

From 2009 until 2010, Nathan served as special assistant to the president and associate White House counsel in the Barack Obama administration.

From 2010 until her appointment as a United States district judge, Nathan worked in the New York State Attorney General's Office as a special counsel to the state's Solicitor General, Barbara Underwood.

She served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York from 2011 to 2022.

She previously served as associate White House counsel for President Barack Obama.

On March 31, 2011, President Barack Obama nominated Nathan to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to replace Judge Sidney H. Stein, who assumed senior status in 2010.

Obama made the appointment upon the recommendation of Senator Chuck Schumer.

On June 8, 2011, a hearing on her nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

On July 14, 2011, her nomination was favorably reported by the committee in a 14–4 vote.

The United States Senate confirmed her nomination by a 48–44 vote on October 13, 2011.

She received her judicial commission four days later.

Nathan is recorded as the second openly gay jurist on the federal bench, after Deborah Batts.

Since her appointment in 2013, Nathan supported changes to the clerkship system under what has been known as the Law Clerk Hiring Plan.

While on the federal bench, Nathan has been adjunct professor of Clinical Law at the New York University School of Law.

Her service on the district court terminated on March 31, 2022, when she was elevated to the court of appeals.

In 2014, following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in American Broadcasting Cos., Inc. v. Aereo, Inc., Nathan entered a preliminary injunction that blocked Aereo from streaming live TV to devices.

In 2016, Nathan was a guest judge for Harvard Law School's Ames Moot Court Competition.

In April 2020, Nathan criticized a Federal Bureau of Prisons practice of putting early released inmates into special COVID-19 quarantines which defied inmates' court-approved early release and the law; Nathan said that such policies were "illogical" and "Kafkaesque".

She granted some inmates compassionate release due to the pandemic, allowing them to leave prison early.

In 2020 and 2021, Nathan presided over the bail hearings and trial for Ghislaine Maxwell, who was indicted on federal charges of conspiring and participating with Jeffrey Epstein in the sexual abuse of minors.

Nathan ordered Maxwell detained pending trial, denying Maxwell's four bail applications on the ground that she presented a substantial risk of flight.

Nathan's rulings were all upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Maxwell was convicted following a jury trial on five sex trafficking-related counts, and in June 2022, Nathan sentenced Maxwell to 20 years' imprisonment.

In 2020, Nathan issued an unusual decision strongly criticizing the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, and its leadership, for their handling of the high-profile case of Ali Sadr Hasheminejad.