2 judicial nominations will hold interest for 2-state region

WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden is making two final nominations to the federal bench this year as he caps his first year in office with 40 judges confirmed.

That’s the most since Ronald Reagan was president.

Nancy Gbana Abudu, his nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, would be the first Black woman named to that court. The circuit covers Alabama, Georgia and Florida, where 8.5 million people are Black and yet there is only one Black judge on the 12-person panel.

MORE | Federal grant to add berth at Georgia’s Port of Brunswick

The other nominee, also a woman of color, is J. Michelle Childs, a U.S. District Court judge for South Carolina. She is nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Democratic Georgia Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff celebrated the White House’s nomination of Abudu.

“Nancy Abudu is an accomplished litigator who has devoted her career to serving communities throughout the South. Her extensive experience, which includes serving as a staff attorney for the Circuit to which she is nominated, reflects a deep commitment to public service and the rule of law,” Warnock said.

Abudu is the deputy legal director and director for strategic litigation at the Southern Poverty Law Center, where she has worked since 2019. Abudu was previously the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida from 2013 to 2018 and senior staff counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union Voting Rights Project from 2005 to 2013.

Abudu served as a staff attorney for the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit from 2002 to 2004.

She was an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP from 1999 to 2001.

Abudu received her Juris Doctor from Tulane University School of Law in 1999 and her Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University in 1996.

Childs has served as a United States District Court Judge for the District of South Carolina since 2010.

She previously served as a state trial court judge on the South Carolina Circuit Court from 2006 to 2010.

Ultimately receiving her Master’s in Judicial Studies from Duke University in 2016, Childs first earned her J.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Law and her M.A. in Personnel and Employment Relations from the University of South Carolina School of Business in 1991.