Stephanos Bibas

Stephanos Bibas (born June 18, 1969) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as a U.S. circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Before his appointment to the bench, Bibas was a professor of law and criminology at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he also served as director of its Supreme Court clinic.

Bibas is a noted scholar of criminal procedure with expertise in criminal charging, plea bargaining, and sentencing.

As a professor, he examined how procedural rules written for jury trials have unintended consequences when cases involving jury trials are the exception, rather than the rule, with 95 percent of defendants pleading guilty.

Bibas also studied the role of substantive goals such as remorse and apology in criminal procedure.

Bibas has been praised for the quality of his legal writing.

Bibas was born in New York City and spent his summers growing up working for his father, a Greek immigrant who survived the occupation of Greece during World War II, in his family's restaurants.

In high school, he became involved in debate and public speaking.

He graduated high school at the age of 15 and entered Columbia University.

At Columbia, Bibas was a member of the Philolexian Society and participated in Parliamentary debate.

He graduated from Columbia in 1989 at age 19 with a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude in political theory.

He then studied jurisprudence at University College, Oxford, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in 1991 (later promoted per tradition to a Master of Arts).

While at Oxford, Bibas won the 1st place speaker award in the World Debate Championships.

Bibas then attended Yale Law School.

Bibas joined the moot court team and won awards for the best oralist and best team, and he was a symposium editor of the Yale Law Journal.

He graduated in 1994 with a Juris Doctor.

From 1994 to 1995, Bibas was a law clerk for judge Patrick Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

He worked in private practice with the law firm Covington & Burling from 1995 to 1997, then clerked for justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1997 to 1998, where he was a co-clerk of Raymond Kethledge.

After his Supreme Court clerkship, Bibas was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1998 to 2000.

He successfully prosecuted Alastair Duncan, the world's leading expert in Tiffany stained glass for hiring a grave robber to steal Tiffany windows from cemeteries.

Duncan was sentenced to 27 months in Federal prison.

Bibas was a research fellow at Yale Law from 2000 to 2001, then became a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law.

In 2006, Bibas moved to the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

He received the Robert A. Gorman Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2008.

Bibas is the 15th-most-cited law professor by the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and state high courts as well as the 5th-most-cited professor of criminal law and procedure by law professors.

Bibas also directed Penn Law's Supreme Court clinic, for which he litigated a wide range of appellate cases under consideration by the United States Supreme Court.

The clinic allows students to assist on real Supreme Court cases, including recruiting, strategizing, researching, writing briefs, participating in moot court rehearsals, and attending oral arguments at the Court itself.

The Court appointed him to brief and argue Tapia v. United States as amicus curiae.

The Court praised Bibas and the clinic for doing "an exceptionally good job" on that case.

Cases argued

On June 19, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Bibas to serve as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, to fill the seat vacated by Judge Midge Rendell, who assumed senior status on July 1, 2015.

The American Bar Association rated him a unanimously “Well Qualified” nominee, its highest ranking.

On October 4, 2017, a hearing on his nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

On October 26, 2017, his nomination was reported out of committee by an 11–9 vote.

On November 2, 2017, the United States Senate invoked cloture on his nomination by a 54–43 vote.

His nomination was confirmed on the same day by a 53–43 vote.

He received his judicial commission on November 20, 2017.

Judge Bibas also has sat by designation as a trial judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

According to a legal writing expert, “Judge Bibas is considered one of the best writers on the federal bench.” Bibas’s judicial writing style has been called “instantly recognizable”; its use of short, punchy sentences and colorful examples aims for "radical clarity."

His writing style and typography have been praised as “point[ing] the way to opinions that are more professional-looking and readable.” In a widely quoted speech, he argued that judges should write “in a way that ordinary citizens can understand.” Doing so helps the public see that “judges aren’t just politicians in robes.”