Politics | 05/24/2009 2:24 pm
10 Facts About Diane Wood, Potential Supreme Court Justice Pick

President Barack Obama is beginning interviews with prospective replacements for David Souter’s Supreme Court seat. On Tuesday, he met with Judge Diane Wood at the Georgetown University Law Center.
So who is Hon. Diane Pamela Wood? Will she change the dynamics of the Supreme Court?
Here are ten facts wowOwow has collected about Diane P. Wood, to help you get to know her a little better.
1) Judge Wood was born in New Jersey and her father was an accountant for Exxon.
2) She received her bachelor’s degree in 1971, and her law degree at the University of Texas in 1975, according to the University of Chicago Law School Website.
3) After graduation, Wood served as a clerk for Judge Irving Goldberg and Justice Harry Blackmun.
4) She has been associated with the University of Chicago since 1981, and first met President Obama while they were both teaching at the university’s law school, The Washington Post reports. Wood currently serves on the faculty as a senior lecturer of law.
5) Wood has served 14 years in the federal court systems, and the Post reports she is respected in Chicago’s liberal legal circles for serving as an intellectual counterpart to the circuit’s star conservative judges, Frank H. Easterbrook and Richard Posner.
6) From 1993 to 1995, Wood worked as the deputy assistant general in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.
7) In 1995, then-President Bill Clinton nominated Wood for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and it was confirmed by the Senate.
8) According to The New Republic, "In the most recent Almanac of the Federal Judiciary, Wood gets consistently high marks from anonymous lawyers for her legal abilities, courtroom demeanor and active participation in oral argument. Some lawyers note that she is a liberal by the standards of the Seventh Circuit, and that she appears to be more neutral than some of the others, but still has that slight government tilt."
9) Wood has musical talent: she plays the oboe and English horn.
10) Wood, 58, is married to her second husband, Robert L. Sufit, a professor of neurology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, according to Bester News. Wood has three children (Kathryn, David and Jane) and three stepchildren (Ben, Jessica and Alexandra).
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With Souter leaving the nation’s highest judicial body, most speculate Obama will hire a female to gain more balance in the predominately male third branch. When we first posed the question to our audience on who Obama should choose as Souter’s replacement, 23 readers weighed in with various responses.
Mary Quite-Contrary said:
The problem Obama will face is not a bumper crop of well qualified, intelligent women candidates; as there are many. It is the political baggage that alot of his campaign rhetoric drags along … Souter was not a conservative or even a centrist on the bench; yet, because he was a ‘Bush’ appointment, I fear the far left will call for someone on the fringes to ‘make up’ for his perceived (though not validated by decision making) right leanings. This is just going to be fascinating to watch…multiple times, as Ginsberg is in failing health.
Nancy Northup said:
Now we’re empowering you to tell us what you know about Wood below. Also tell us what you know or think about the other women thought to be on Obama’s short list (Solicitor General Elena Kagan and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor).With Justice Souter’s retirement, we lose someone who has been a consistent supporter of abortion rights. The Center for Reproductive Rights is advocating for President Obama to nominate an individual who will remain committed to protecting women’s privacy and reproductive health choices.
Since Justice David Souter joined the bench in 1990, there’s been a substantial shift in the acceptance and protection of reproductive rights worldwide … The Center urges President Obama to nominate a Justice who has a strong understanding of the realities of women’s lives, understands the real life experiences of people, and ultimately, is committed to the principles and promise of Roe v. Wade.























15 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
Thomas Jefferson suggested that the Congress be encouraged to focus on quality of laws passed, rather than quantity, and for good reason, I think. In one aspect, laws are made for the few instead of the many: those with enough influence, power, and time are those that are best able to take advantage of any loopholes in the law and also to formulate strategies to make the law work to their advantage as much as possible.
Perhaps we should not so much worry about maintaining empathy in the courtroom as we should just keeping our outrageous congress in check. Fewer and better-written laws would, by Jefferson’s logic, negate the need for empathy in the courtroom.
Empathetic means to me they can see BOTH sides, It doesn’t imply one side or the other is favored.
The judge should be able to put themselves in either situation and undersatnd the situation, not just the written law.
President Obama has chosen the "inspiring" Sonia Sotomayor as his nominee for the Supreme Court. Too bad we can’t get the disgusting Anton Scalia off the bench making way for Diane Wood.
TZ: Inspiring?? Ask a few fire fighters in CT how inspiring she is.
And, why would you call Anton Scalia disgusting? Because he is a conservative?
Disgusting is not a word I would have used, but since you opened up this pandora’s box, there are alot more people that BO has picked for various posts that I could call disgusting.
* I wonder if Sonia has paid her taxes? Most of his friends (picks for posts) seem to think they don’t have to, this should be interesting.