As Donald Trump prepares to leave the White House, Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to find out how his record on judicial appointments compares with that of other recent presidents, going back to Jimmy Carter.
The analysis is based on data published by the Federal Judicial Center , the research and education agency of the federal judicial branch. It excludes those appointed to certain specialized courts, such as the U. White judges in this analysis include only those who identify as single-race non-Hispanic, as reported by the Federal Judicial Center.
Non-White judges include those who identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American or another race or ethnicity, as well as those who identify as multiracial or multiethnic. Trump stands out for the large number of federal appeals court judges he appointed in only four years.
Not surprisingly, the overall number of judges appointed by Trump in his single term is well below the totals of recent two-term presidents, including Obama , George W. Bush and Bill Clinton Trump appointed 54 federal appellate judges in four years, one short of the 55 Obama appointed in twice as much time. The three Supreme Court justices he appointed — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — are the most by any president since Ronald Reagan who appointed four and the most by any one-term president since Herbert Hoover though Richard Nixon appointed four in his first four years in office.
They may also be removed by impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate. Throughout history, fifteen federal judges have been impeached due to alleged wrongdoing.
One exception to the lifetime appointment is for magistrate judges, which are selected by district judges and serve a specified term. The district courts are the general trial courts of the federal court system. Each district court has at least one United States District Judge, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for a life term.
District courts handle trials within the federal court system — both civil and criminal. The districts are the same as those for the U. Attorneys, and the U. Attorney is the primary prosecutor for the federal government in his or her respective area. There are over district court judges nationwide. Some tasks of the district court are given to federal magistrate judges. Magistrates are appointed by the district court by a majority vote of the judges and serve for a term of eight years if full-time and four years if part-time, but they can be reappointed after completion of their term.
In criminal matters, magistrate judges may oversee certain cases, issue search warrants and arrest warrants, conduct initial hearings, set bail, decide certain motions such as a motion to suppress evidence , and other similar actions.
In civil cases, magistrates often handle a variety of issues such as pre-trial motions and discovery. Federal trial courts have also been established for a few subject-specific areas. While most civil cases are tried by district judges, magistrate judges may also preside over civil trials if all parties consent. Like other federal judges, all full-time magistrate judges are paid the same salary, regardless of where they serve or their years of service.
The position and authority of magistrate judges was established in They must also be vetted by a merit selection panel that consists of lawyers and non-lawyers from the community.
By majority vote of the U. In addition, there are a small number of part-time magistrate judges who serve four-year terms. The number and location of magistrated judges is determined by the Judicial Conference of the United States. Bankruptcy judges are judicial officers of the district court who preside exclusively over bankruptcy proceedings and cases. Bankruptcy judges receive the same annual salary, no matter where they serve or how many years of service. They are appointed to renewable year terms by a majority of the judges of the U.
Court of Appeals for their circuit with assistance from the circuit council. The bankruptcy judge position was established in , and the appointment process is set by Judicial Conference policy, in accordance with the Bankruptcy Amendments and Federal Judgeship Act of Bankruptcy judges must meet eligibility criteria, including being a member of the bar in good standing. Circuit councils may appoint a merit selection panel, consisting of judges and other legal professionals, to review and recommend candidates for appointment.
Like clerkships—and as noted previously—working at prestigious law firms is often considered an important step to becoming a federal judge. Accordingly, law schools should help students from all backgrounds secure these sought-after positions. Each fall, law schools across the country host events where law firms come to interview students for hiring opportunities. However, to promote inclusive hiring practices, law schools could allow only those law firms with proven records of hiring and retaining attorneys from historically underrepresented groups and diverse backgrounds to interview students at their school.
Alternatively, law schools could give those firms special priority in selecting students to interview and hire. By only allowing law firms that foster and maintain diversity to participate—or by giving those firms priority—on hiring days, law schools can help incentivize other firms to improve diversity within their ranks. As an added bonus, law students who do get hired are more likely to be placed at a firm where they will be empowered to succeed.
At the very least, law schools should make information about law firm diversity statistics readily available to students and, on law firm interview and hiring days, provide students with rankings of firms based on their commitment to diverse hiring and retention. As described in previous sections of this report, working in certain sectors of the legal field—for example, serving as a judicial clerk, working at a top law firm, presiding as a state or local judge, or serving as a state attorney general or U.
Unfortunately, people of color, women, and individuals from other underrepresented groups are less likely to be employed in these positions. Judges, law firms, politicians, and even voters have a role to play in helping to diversify these legal sectors. Steps must be taken to ensure that law students and lawyers from all backgrounds have access to these kinds of positions and that they are treated fairly once they attain them.
Clerkship positions are not often filled by candidates from historically underrepresented groups. Previous sections of this report examined the lack of demographic diversity and variance in educational backgrounds among federal judges.
But many of those same patterns hold true for federal law clerks. Research shows that from to , Harvard students accounted for nearly a quarter of all Supreme Court law clerks, with students from Yale comprising another 19 percent. During the same span, just 10 law schools combined accounted for nearly 82 percent of all Supreme Court clerks. Even when individuals belonging to historically underrepresented groups are selected for clerkships, they may feel isolated due to the lack of other clerks and judges with similar backgrounds.
Some female clerks have even reported being sexually harassed by male judges. In hiring for clerkships, judges must look beyond law students and graduates who attended elite law schools and consider hiring clerks with different educational backgrounds and experiences.
The elitist structure currently in place closes the door to many highly qualified individuals who would serve as exceptional clerks. Judge Vince Chhabria of the U. But interviewing off-the-radar candidates has sometimes led me to hire a fantastic person who might not originally have been given an interview. Overall, my hiring process has been better because of this practice, and it has resulted in stronger chambers.
Once they are hired, clerks must also have access to resources to report discriminatory or harassing behavior. Voluntary mentorship programs could also be established to pair clerks with former clerks from similar backgrounds. Such programs could help judicial clerks of all backgrounds to navigate the judicial institution.
Like clerkships, prestigious law firms are also highly selective and favor law graduates who attended elite law schools and graduated at the top of their class. But again, as explored in previous sections, the many obstacles that students from traditionally underserved communities face in law school may cause their GPAs to suffer, especially in comparison with their elite peers, who are advantaged by the current system in many ways.
According to the same study, women comprised slightly less than half of law firm associates that year. The same study found that only 1. And women of color comprised just 3. Candidates from underrepresented backgrounds who do get hired at law firms are not always primed for success. Women, people of color, and LGBTQ people have reported being discriminated against, harassed, or passed over for promotions and assignments at law firms.
According to an ABA study, 49 percent of women of color working at law firms have reported being subject to harassment, while 62 percent reported being excluded from networking opportunities critical for career advancement. In comparison, between 2 and 4 percent of white men working at law firms reported experiencing the same issues. Additionally, law firm associates who identify as LGBTQ have reported regularly hearing anti-gay comments in the workplace.
When individuals feel unsupported or even attacked in the workplace, they are more likely to leave their prestigious positions or the law profession altogether. Studies have shown that lawyers of color are more likely to leave their firm jobs than white lawyers. Like judges and clerkships, law firms must make hiring decisions with an eye toward bringing on more women, people of color, people who identify as LGBTQ, and people with disabilities as well as different religious affiliations.
Fortunately, many law firms have implemented the Mansfield Rule, which requires at least 30 percent of firm leadership candidates to be members of historically underrepresented groups. They must be empowered to make independent assessments of and take meaningful action to address problems within firms related to diverse hiring and retention practices, as well as to ensure that workplace conduct and work distribution are free of discrimination and harassment.
Clients are also prioritizing firm diversity. It is also important to improve firm culture in order to increase retention rates among associates and partners from historically underrepresented groups. Safe workplace and bias trainings must occur regularly, and individuals who make bigoted or offensive comments must face repercussions, regardless of their place on the hierarchical totem pole.
There must also be formal processes for investigating performance evaluations and work distribution patterns that may be tainted by supervisor bias. Firm attorneys belonging to historically underrepresented groups should be paired with mentors who are invested in their success. These mentors may themselves be members of underrepresented groups, but they may also be senior associates and partners that are not from such groups.
In fact, some lawyers of color have acknowledged that being paired with white partners can be crucial for their success, given that they may have more connections with others in the legal field or larger client lists. Aside from clerkships and jobs at prestigious law firms, federal judges are also recruited from state supreme courts and attorneys general AG offices.
Unfortunately, diversity is a problem in these areas as well. A recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice found that judges of color comprise just 15 percent of state supreme court seats nationwide.
Nearly half of all states have supreme courts comprised entirely of white judges. The same diversity issues exist for attorneys general. In fact, there are only nine women and 12 people of color currently serving as state attorneys general, comprising only about Addressing diversity problems in these sectors requires diversity-centered decision-making by governors, presidents, and the public, who appoints or elects state supreme court judges and attorneys general. Addressing the pipeline problem, as explored above, will go a long way toward ensuring that there is a larger pool of judicial candidates from which to choose for the federal bench.
But ensuring that future judicial candidates are set up for success in and out of law school is only half the battle. Even if lawyers from different backgrounds play their cards right under the current system—by going to the most prestigious law school, graduating at the top of their class, clerking at the Supreme Court, and then making partner at a top law firm or presiding over a state supreme court—they still face an uphill battle in attaining a federal judgeship.
As explored in Part I of this report, despite their exceptional qualifications, judicial candidates from underrepresented groups are far outnumbered by cis white male judges on the federal courts. Solutions are therefore needed to ensure that candidates from all backgrounds are being nominated by presidential administrations and approved by Congress.
As illustrated in previous sections of this report, for much of American history, U. Except for during the administrations of former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, judicial nominations of people from underrepresented groups have been few and far between.
Similarly, even when candidates of color, women, and openly LGBTQ candidates have been nominated, Congress has been slow to confirm their appointments. Another explanation is that in nominating and confirming federal judges, presidential administrations and Congress must make various considerations and strategic calculations.
Depending on the political climate at the time, judicial diversity may unfortunately fall by the wayside even under administrations with the best intentions. In nominating judges, presidents must make diversifying the bench a top priority for their administrations. As discussed previously, President Carter was a leader in this area. President Obama, too, consciously selected judges who represented a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Presidents must emulate the examples set by Carter and Obama to diversify federal courts.
Efforts to diversify the federal bench cannot, however, be limited to demographic characteristics. In addition to compiling a group of nominees from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, genders, LGBTQ identities, and religious affiliations, presidents should nominate judges who come from different educational and professional backgrounds.
That the federal judiciary is made up largely of judges who worked in private practice and as prosecutors is problematic since it means that a very small subset of perspectives dominate the judicial system.
There are many lawyers who would make excellent judges that are currently working in the public sector, including as public defenders, nonprofit litigators, and as direct legal service providers. Although such career paths have historically not been pathways to federal judgeships, they certainly should be. That Obama—who arguably did more to improve representation on the federal bench than any other president—did not appoint people from historically underrepresented groups at rates of even 50 percent is noteworthy.
In order to make any real dent in the diversity problem that plagues the current judiciary, the proportion of women and people of color being appointed needs to be much higher, greatly exceeding any 50 percent threshold. LGBTQ judges, judges with disabilities, and judges belonging to religious minorities should also be appointed at significantly higher rates. In nominating and confirming judicial appointees, presidential administrations should engage in robust consultation with a variety of groups and communities.
Affinity organizations and bar associations, disability rights and justice advocates, and interfaith coalitions and leaders specializing in judicial nominations can provide a wealth of valuable insight on and recommendations for judicial nominees from different backgrounds and experiences.
Like the executive branch, the legislative branch must also make confirming these nominees a matter of utmost importance. The Senate should demand nominees who belong to underrepresented groups and who come from different backgrounds. It should no longer be a complacent party in confirming more and more white, male, and elitist judges. The Senate has significant power over the judicial confirmation process and, as such, should be more assertive in pushing for greater diversity on the bench.
Senators should similarly consult with justice-oriented groups and affinity bar associations when confirming judicial nominees. Such organizations can warn lawmakers about nominees with poor records on issues that disproportionately affect historically underrepresented groups.
Although the ABA does not exercise any formal authority over who gets nominated or appointed to the federal bench, it plays an influential role through issuing ratings on federal judicial nominees. Unfortunately, research suggests that the ABA rating system disproportionately disadvantages judges belonging to historically underrepresented groups. For instance, female judges and judges belonging to racial or ethnic minorities are less likely than their male and white counterparts to be highly rated by the ABA, even though there is zero evidence that white or male judges are more qualified than those belonging to underrepresented groups.
The recommendations listed above are steps that can be taken to ensure that, going forward, judicial vacancies are filled by judges who belong to historically underrepresented groups and have a variety of experiences.
There, of course, remains the question of what to do about the judges already serving on the federal bench. As described in previous sections of this report, judges—like everyone else—have implicit biases regarding race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and so on. Although it is impossible to eliminate judicial bias in its entirety, steps can be taken to mitigate its effect. For example, federal judges—including Supreme Court justices—along with all senior court employees and law clerks, should be required to undergo implicit bias training on an annual basis.
Trainings could be carried out by implicit bias specialists and include presentations from affected litigants as well as organizations and bar associations representing various groups and communities, specifically those that are historically underrepresented.
Implicit bias training could be mandated by the Federal Judicial Center or required by Congress. All federal judges are already required by law to complete annual financial disclosures in the interests of transparency and accountability. Another way to mitigate bias is for state bars to require trainings as part of their Continuing Legal Education curriculum, as is the case in Minnesota.
For instance, organizations engaged in court monitoring practices will often send trained volunteers to monitor certain classes of court cases for judicial bias against parties and attorneys. These organizations can then provide feedback to judges on their performances and offer judicial bias trainings to address the problem.
The federal judiciary needs judges with a wealth of different and unique experiences, who understand how their rulings can affect people from underrepresented groups and those from all backgrounds. Improving the diversity of the federal judiciary would signal both to the public and to parties that have business before the courts that it is a fair and equitable institution.
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