Ada E. Brown

Ada E. Brown
Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas
Incumbent
Assumed office September 13, 2019
Appointed by	Donald Trump
Preceded by	Terry R. Means
Associate Justice of the Fifth Court of Appeals of Texas
In office September 3, 2013 – September 13, 2019
Appointed by	Rick Perry
Succeeded by	David W. Evans
Judge of the Dallas County Criminal Court
In office 2005–2007
Appointed by	Rick Perry
Personal details
Born	Ada Elene Brown[1] (1974-11-08) November 8, 1974 (age 47)[2] Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.
Nationality	United States Choctaw Nation[3]
Political party	Republican
Education	Spelman College (BA) Emory University School of Law (JD)

Ada Elene Brown (born November 8, 1974) is a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. She is a former trial judge of the Dallas County courts and a former Justice of the Fifth Court of Appeals of Texas. She is the first African-American woman federal judge nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate.^[4] A citizen of the Choctaw Nation, Brown is also one of four Native American federal judges who are actively serving on the federal bench.^[5]

Education[]

Brown graduated as a valedictorian of her high school class, where she was elected both sophomore and junior class president.^[6] She received her Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from Spelman College, and her Juris Doctor from Emory University School of Law, both in Atlanta, Georgia.^[7] Brown is a member of Mensa and is trilingual.^[8] She is African American and Native American.^[9][10]

Legal career[]

Criminal law practice[]

Brown began her career practicing criminal law. She served as a trial prosecutor at the Dallas County District Attorney's Office, where she tried over 100 jury trials to verdict as lead prosecutor. During this time, she became a felony trial prosecutor and prosecuted murders, rapes, kidnappings, and other felony crimes. She later specialized in prosecuting felony internet crimes against children.^[11] In 2005, Brown was one of 2.5% of attorneys under 40 selected by Super Lawyers magazine as a Rising Star in criminal prosecution.^[11] Brown left the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office to become a trial judge.

Civil law practice[]

After leaving the trial bench, Brown practiced as a civil litigator at McKool Smith in Dallas, Texas, where her practice focused on high-stakes commercial litigation and complex patent infringement matters. ^[11] While there, she tried cases that resulted in some of the largest jury trial verdicts in the nation. In a representative case, she presented evidence for plaintiffs about the technology of the ’350 patent to the jury in the Versata Development Group, Inc. v. SAP America, Inc. trial, where the jury awarded $345 million to her client, Versata. This award was increased to $391 million on final judgment. This was the 10th largest jury verdict in the US for 2011.^[12]

Brown also presented plaintiff's evidence of damages to the jury in the Medtronic v. Boston Scientific patent infringement trial, where Boston Scientific was found to have infringed Medtronic's ’364, ’358, and ’057 patents. The jury returned a $250 million verdict in favor of her client. This was the 12th largest jury verdict in the US for 2008.^[13]

In 2012 and 2013, Brown was one 2.5% of attorneys under 40 selected by Super Lawyers magazine as a Rising Star in commercial litigation.^[11]

Law enforcement commissioner[]

Brown was appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry to serve as a Commissioner for the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education, the regulatory agency responsible for licensing all police officers in Texas. Perry later appointed Brown as a Commissioner for the Texas Department of Public Safety, the board responsible for overseeing the legendary Texas Ranger Division as well as all State troopers in the Texas Highway Patrol.^[14]

When she ended her service as a Commissioner for the Texas Department of Public Safety to become an appellate court judge, Perry awarded her the Yellow Rose of Texas Award. Brown was also named an Honorary Captain of the Texas Rangers by the Texas Department of Public Safety.^[11]

Judicial career[]

State judicial service[]

Brown testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee during her nomination hearing to be a federal judge on April 30, 2019.

Brown served as a trial judge of the Dallas County Criminal Court, before leaving the bench to join McKool Smith.^[11] When Brown was appointed to serve as a trial judge at age 30, she was then the youngest sitting judge in Texas.^[15]

On September 3, 2013, Governor Rick Perry appointed her to serve as a Justice on the Fifth Court of Appeals of Texas, the state's largest and busiest intermediate appellate court. At the time of her appointment to the Fifth Court of Appeals of Texas, at age 38, she was then the youngest sitting appellate court judge in Texas.^[16]

In a 2019 Dallas Bar Association's nonpartisan judicial performance poll, lawyers anonymously evaluated her performance as an appellate court justice. Justice Brown was the highest rated justice on her appellate court in four of the five areas of evaluation, including proper judicial temperament and demeanor; authoring well-reasoned opinions based on proper application of the law; being open-minded with respect to determination of legal issues; and overall performance as an appellate judge.^[17]

Brown served as a Justice on Fifth Court of Appeals of Texas for six years, during which time she authored over 600 opinions and heard over 1,500 civil and criminal appeals.^[11] She resigned from the Fifth Court of Appeals of Texas upon her appointment to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

Federal judicial service[]

On March 15, 2019, President Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate Brown to serve as a United States District Judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.^[7] On March 26, 2019, her nomination was sent to the Senate. Ada Brown was nominated to the seat vacated by Judge Terry R. Means, who took senior status on July 3, 2013.^[18] On April 30, 2019, a hearing on her nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee.^[19] On June 13, 2019, her nomination was reported out of committee by an 18–4 vote.^[20] On July 30, 2019, the Senate voted 79–9 to invoke cloture on her nomination.^[21] On September 11, 2019, the Senate voted 80 yeas and 13 nays to confirm her nomination to the federal bench. ^[22] Senators who voted against Ada E. Brown were Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer, Tammy Baldwin, Richard Blumenthal, Sherrod Brown, Maria Cantwell, Catherine Cortez Masto, Kirsten Gillibrand, Mazie Hirono, Ed Markey, Patty Murray, Brian Schatz, Debbie Stabenow and Ron Wyden.^[23] She received her judicial commission on September 13, 2019.

Brown was confirmed in a batch of ten Texas federal judicial candidates nominated by President Trump, none of whom had previously been nominated by President Obama. The other nine nominees were confirmed by the Senate with relatively tight votes ranging from 49 to 46 in favor of confirmation to a high of 56–41 in favor of confirmation. Brown's nomination had significant bipartisan support, and an unusually high number of Democratic senators joined with Republican senators to confirm her nomination. She received an 80-13 confirmation vote, which was significantly higher than that received by most Trump federal judicial nominees.^[22]

Brown was unanimously rated well-qualified by the American Bar Association.^[24]

Brown talked about her job as a federal judge in several interviews with magazines.^[25][26][6] Brown was also featured in a video for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.^[27] She also talked about her path to the federal bench in a SCOTUS 101 podcast.^[28]

Brown was the first African-American woman appointed to a bench in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas in its 140-year existence.^[29] She is also the first African-American woman Article III federal judge nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate,^[30] and only the second Native woman in US history to sit on the federal bench.^[31]

Memberships[]

Brown is a member of Mensa, Daughters of the American Revolution, the Mayflower Society, and the Federalist Society. Brown joined Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority while at Spelman College. She is also a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.^{[11][32][10][33]}

See also[]

• List of Native American jurists

References[]

External links[]

• Ada E. Brown at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
• Ada Brown at Ballotpedia