The FBA Centennial Celebration of the 19th Amendment – A Woman’s Way to the Federal Bench, is a series of interviews with federal female judges which celebrates diversity, equity and inclusion and women’s contributions to federal jurisprudence. View recorded video interview profiles which focus on individual female federal judges’ personal backgrounds, their professional development, challenges, successes and what the future holds for diversity, equity and inclusion at the federal level.
Presented by the Diversity and Inclusion Standing Committee
Hon. Sharon Louise Gleason
District Judge, United States District Court, District of Alaska
Click Here to view Judge Gleason’s Interview
Sharon Gleason is currently a United States District Judge for Alaska, a position she began in January 2012. She was nominated to the position by President Obama in April 2011, and confirmed by the United States Senate in November 2011. Judge Gleason’s legal career began in 1983, when she served as a law clerk to then-Chief Justice Edmond Burke of the Alaska Supreme Court. She then worked as an attorney in private practice in Anchorage from 1984 until 2001, focusing primarily on family law. In 2001 she was appointed by then-Governor Knowles to the Anchorage Superior Court. In 2009, she became the presiding judge for the Superior Court’s Third Judicial District in the Alaska Court System. Judge Gleason earned a bachelor’s degree in 1979 from Washington University in St. Louis. She earned a law degree in 1983 from University of California at Davis School of Law.
Hon. Danielle J. Hunsaker
Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Click Here to view Judge Hunsaker’s Interview
Danielle J. Hunsaker was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by President Donald Trump and was confirmed in November 2019. Her chambers are in Portland, Oregon. Judge Hunsaker was born and raised in Oregon. Immediately before her appointment to the federal bench, she was a trial judge on the Washington County Circuit Court in Hillsboro, Oregon. While on the state bench, Judge Hunsaker handled criminal, civil, and probate cases and served in leadership as the Chief Civil Judge and the Presiding Judge. Judge Hunsaker graduated from the University of Idaho College of Law magna cum laude and served on the Idaho Law Review. She clerked for Judge Paul J. Kelly, Jr. of the Tenth Circuit, Judge Michael W. Mosman of the U.S. District Court in Oregon, and Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the Ninth Circuit. Judge Hunsaker had a civil litigation practice in Portland at Stoel Rives LLP and Larkins Vacura Kayser, LLP, where she was a partner. She also was an adjunct professor at Lewis & Clark Law School teaching advanced civil procedure and litigation skills.
Hon. Louise A. LaMothe
Magistrate Judge, United States District Court, District of California
Click Here to view Judge LaMothe’s Interview
United States Magistrate Judge Louise LaMothe occupies a unique part-time judicial position in Santa Barbara for the Central District of California. She has served since 2014 and handles a wide variety of criminal duties as well as settlement conferences for the Court. She practiced as an arbitrator and mediator for 20 years in Santa Barbara before her appointment and continues her private ADR practice in areas that do not conflict with her official duties. A Stanford Law School graduate and Martindale AV-rated litigator in Los Angeles for more than 20 years, she serves on the American Arbitration Association’s commercial, employment, international, class action and large complex case panels She is a Fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and an International Mediation Institute-certified mediator. She is a former Chair of the ABA Section of Litigation, and a life member of the ALI. She has written and spoken throughout her career on gender equity and has been named one of California’s Top 50 California Neutrals and a California Super Lawyer.
Hon. Patricia A. Whalen
Former International Judge, War Crimes Chamber, Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Click Here to view Judge Whalen’s Interview
Hon. Patricia Whalen has been a judge for more than 20 years, having presided over proceedings in the U.S. and serving for 5 years (2007-2012) as an international judge in the War Crimes Chamber of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this capacity she served on both the First Instance and Appellate Court. She is the founding member of the Afghan Judicial Education Program, facilitating cross-cultural judicial learning in both the U.S. and Afghanistan. Whalen was an official expert representative of the International Association of Women Judges at The Hague Conference on Private International Law. She holds specializations in areas including human rights, war crimes, gender violence in conflict, genocide and crimes against humanity, as well as family law. Judge Whalen served as a Special Advisor to the Court in Bosnia and Herzegovina (2012-2014), focusing on judicial education in international law, judicial management systems, trial management, designing judicial education programs, hybrid legal systems, judicial trial skills particularly in regards to war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and gender-based violence.
Moderator:
Bryan J. Branon
Principal, Branon’s ADR
Chair-Elect, Alternative Dispute Resolution Section
Committee Member, Diversity and Inclusion Standing Committee
