Patricia Wald

Patricia Ann McGowan Wald (September 16, 1928 – January 12, 2019) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1986 until 1991.

Wald was born on September 16, 1928, in Torrington, Connecticut.

She was the only child of Joseph F. McGowan, an alcoholic, and Margaret O'Keefe.

Her father left the family when she was two years old, leaving Wald to be raised by her mother with the company and support of extended relatives, most of whom were factory workers in Torrington and active union members.

Wald had a Roman Catholic upbringing, and worked in brass mills as a teenager during the summers.

Due to her involvement in the labor movement and union work, she was determined to go to law school to help protect underprivileged, working-class people.

Wald attended Torrington's St. Francis School and graduated in 1940.

She then went on to graduate from Torrington High School in 1944 as the class valedictorian.

She graduated first in her class and joined the Phi Beta Kappa society at Connecticut College in 1948.

She was able to attend Connecticut College for Women because of a scholarship that she received from an elderly affluent woman from her hometown.

She then received a national fellowship from the Pepsi-Cola Company that allowed her to go on and earn her law degree from Yale Law School in 1951.

She graduated with only 11 other women that year out of a class of 200.

Along with the national fellowship, Wald also paid for law school by working as a waitress and taking research jobs with professors.

At Yale, she was an editor on the Yale Law Journal, one of the two women in her class so honored.

After her graduation, she clerked for Judge Jerome Frank of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for a year.

That year, Frank ruled on the appeal of the espionage convictions of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

She briefly entered private practice at the law firm of Arnold, Fortas & Porter for a year before she left to raise her five children.

It would be six years before she would take on part-time consulting and researching positions.

She was a research and editorial assistant for Frederick M. Rowe, Esq. for three years from 1959 to 1962.

She took a year off and then in 1963 spent a year as a member of the National Conference on Bail and Criminal Justice.

Wald then worked as a consultant for the National Conference on Law & Poverty in its Office of Economic Opportunity.

In 1964, she co-authored the book Bail in the United States, which helped reform the nation's bail system.

She then was appointed to the President's Commission on Crime in the District of Columbia from 1965 to 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

She continued her consulting work for the President's Commission on Law Enforcement & Administration of Criminal Justice for a year.

Wald then joined the United States Department of Justice in 1967 and spent a year as an attorney in the Office of Criminal Justice.

From 1968 to 1970, she was an attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services in Washington, D.C. During her tenure at Neighborhood Legal Services Program she was also a consultant for both the National Advisory Committee on Civil Disorder and the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence.

She also co-directed the Ford Foundation's Drug Abuse Research Project during 1970.

She then became an attorney at the Center for Law and Social Policy from 1971 to 1972 and from there switched to work as an attorney at the Mental Health Law Project for five years.

During that time, she was also the director of the Office of Policy and Issues in the vice presidential campaign of Sargent Shriver.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Wald as a U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs.

Wald then went back to the Department of Justice from 1977 to 1979.

She was the Court's first female chief judge and its first woman to be elevated, having been appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.

In 1979, Carter elevated her to the D.C. Circuit, where she received her commission as its first female member.

During her time on the Court, Wald would pen more than 800 judicial opinions.

From 1999 to 2001, Wald was a Justice of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Wald was born in Torrington, Connecticut, to a working-class family.

After graduating from Connecticut College with distinction, a scholarship enabled her to study at Yale Law School, where she became one of two female editors of the Yale Law Journal.

Wald sought a position at a white-shoe firm upon graduation but was turned down for being a woman.

She began her legal career as a law clerk to Judge Jerome Frank instead, later entering the law firm of Arnold, Fortas & Porter as an associate attorney.

After spending a year at the U.S. Department of Justice, Wald's tenure as a practicing lawyer included appointments on various presidential commissions and committees.