About Me

Appointed by President Bill Clinton, Judge David Tatel served on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1994 to 2024, succeeding future Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

After graduating from the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago Law School, he served as the founding director of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and then director of the National Lawyers Committee. He headed the Office for Civil Rights of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare during the Carter administration and then founded and led the education practice at Hogan Lovells, where he is now Senior Counsel. Judge Tatel is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the past, he co-chaired the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Science, Technology, and Law, and chaired the boards of The Spencer Foundation and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Judge Tatel and his wife, Edie, live in Virginia and Washington, D.C. They have four children, eight grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

Judge Tatel’s memoir, Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice, was published on June 11, 2024 by Little Brown. It recently received the Gould Book Award by Touro Law Center.

To learn more about Judge Tatel, click here.