Biden’s New Fifth Circuit Judge Brings GOP-Appealing Resume

Dana Douglas, confirmed this week as the first Black woman on the New Orleans-based federal appeals court, grew up in a law enforcement family before opting for another sort of legal career.

Her uncle served as the first Black superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department. Another uncle was a Drug Enforcement Administration agent and her mother worked for the local sheriff’s office.

“I never could see myself running around with a badge and a gun and a pair of stilettos, so I decided to try to take a different turn,” Douglas said during a March 2021 Miami University panel of women judges.

Douglas instead joined a New Orleans corporate law firm before becoming a magistrate judge in 2019, a resume that helped smooth her confirmation to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Douglas attracted an outsized number of Republican backers, including both home state senators. John Kennedy (R-La.) cited the law enforcement background of Douglas’ family and her experience at a top New Orleans firm, Liskow & Lewis, while introducing her at her July 27 confirmation hearing.

Her confirmation came a week after the 60-31 bipartisan confirmation vote for Doris Pryor, a magistrate judge and former federal prosecutor, who is the first Black judge to serve on an Indiana seat in the Seventh Circuit.

Together, the two confirmations could serve as a template for future Biden judicial nominations, said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond.

“Going forward in the next two years Biden will want to have more Republican support where he can get it because the vacancies will be in red states or have one Republican senator, so all of that makes sense in terms of the background of nominees,” he said. “There’s a lot of misinformation that red state nominees can’t get through, because those two did.”

‘Sense of Fairness’

Lawyers who have known Douglas for decades submitted letters praising her background, character, and what her presence on the court would mean in a circuit that encompasses Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

After attending Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, Douglas clerked for an Eastern District of Louisiana judge. Later, while rising the ranks as a corporate lawyer, Douglas volunteered in legal clinics, helped raise money for pro bono funds, and took on leadership roles in local and state legal groups. She became president of the New Orleans Bar Association, member of the Board of Governors of the Louisiana State Bar Association, and a past president of a New Orleans legal aid group combating racial disparities in the justice system.

At the 2021 Miami University event, Douglas said she decided to put her name in for consideration for a magistrate judge position because of the “public interest aspect” of her family DNA and the appeal of being a neutral advocate rather than a “dogged advocate” for one side.

“It was always on my radar,” Douglas said.

Douglas described the challenges Black women face in becoming judges.

“I do think for us, as Black women, that bar seems a little bit higher than it is for other folks,” Douglas said. She later added, “I do feel like we do have to go an extra five or ten miles in the community work that we did or in our level of practice, years of experience and things of that nature.”

Douglas, who is replacing an appointee of President Bill Clinton, isn’t expected to change the direction of the Fifth Circuit, which skews heavily toward Republican-appointed judges and has blocked a number of Biden administration priorities.

While her nomination won’t change the partisan makeup of the circuit, it will make the circuit “a little less of a boys club” and will bring a “centrist judicial philosophy, even-keeled presence to the court,” said Tad Bartlett, special counsel with the New Orleans office of Fishman Haygood, who worked with Douglas at Liskow & Lewis and wrote a letter of support on her behalf to senators.

Douglas will bring a strong “sense of fairness” earned through these experiences, Sharonda Williams, Loyola University general counsel and director of government affairs, said. The two attended law school together and keep in touch to this day.

Louisiana has a diverse state court bench, but much less diversity in the state’s federal courts, Williams said.

“Seeing someone like Douglas in that space will certainly send a message to young lawyers and law students, especially when this comes on the heels of the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson,” she said. “It makes it that much more attainable.”