Judge Nancy Gertner ’71 Discusses Career Choices Nov. 15

Judge Nancy Gertner ’71 will give a Dean’s Program on the Profession talk Thursday, November 15, at Yale Law School. Gertner, a judge for the U. S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, will speak on “An Improbable Career: Doing What You Think is Right.” The talk will take place from 4-6 p.m. in the Alumni Reading Room. 

“I am frequently asked by law students what career choices one should make that would help the student become a judge at some point in his or her career,” said Judge Gertner. “My answer, and the focus of my November 15 talk, is, ‘Don’t prepare. Don’t tailor your career choices to your prediction of what a Congressional committee fifteen years from now will value in a potential applicant.  Do what you think is right, ethical, and principled and then, if you still want the job, apply.’”

Judge Gertner is a visiting lecturer in law at Yale Law School. Her subjects are discrimination and constitutional law, criminal law and procedure, women’s rights, evidence, and sentencing. She has been a visiting professor at Harvard and an instructor at Boston University and Boston College Law School.

Prior to her appointment as a federal judge in 1994, she was in private practice in Boston, Massachusetts. She is author of The Law of Juries (with Judith Mizner) and the forthcoming From Red Suit to Black Robe.

She holds a B.A. from Barnard and an M.A. and a J.D. from Yale.