Bernice Donald
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
The Honorable Bernice B. Donald, a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2011, received her law degree from the University of Memphis School of Law, a Masters in Judicial Studies from Duke University, and an honorary Doctors in Law from Suffolk University. Prior to appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals, she served on the U.S. District Court. She is currently Chair of the American Bar Association (“ABA”) Center for Human Rights. Judge Donald is a contributing author for an implicit bias resource book for judges and practitioners, Enhancing Justice: Reducing Bias. She served as Chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section, focusing on implicit bias, children of incarcerated parents, mass incarceration, and the collateral consequences of incarceration.
Judge Donald has presented on the topic of implicit bias at numerous institutions including, Third Circuit Judicial Conference, Fordham Law, and Yale Law.
Judge Donald served as faculty at the National Judicial College, Federal Judicial Center, the Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center & School, the National Advocacy Center, and for the Federal Magistrate Judges Conference. She served as faculty for international programs in over 20 countries.
Judge Donald’s writings include: A Glimpse Inside the Brain’s Black Box: Understanding the Role of Neuroscience in Criminal Sentencing, 85 FORDHAM L. REV. 481 (2016); Not Your Father’s Legal Profession: Technology, Globalization, Diversity, and the Future of Law Practice in the United States, 44 U. Mem. L. Rev. 645 (2014); and The Not-So-New Normal of the Legal Profession: Facing and Confounding the Odds, 23 Am. U. J. Gender Soc. Pol’y & L. 1 (2014).