Michael W. McConnell

Michael W. McConnell served as judge for the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. McConnell was born on May 18, 1955 in Louisville, Kentucky. He received his bachelor's degree in 1976 from Michigan State University and his law degree in 1979 from the University of Chicago Law School. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable J. Skelly Wright on the Court of Appeals for the District Columbia Circuit. McConnell served as law clerk for Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan. After his Supreme Court clerkship, he worked for the federal government for several years, first as an assistant general counsel in the Office of Management and Budget and then as an assistant to the solicitor general in the Department of Justice. In 1985, McConnell left public service for academia, teaching at the University of Chicago Law School and then at the S.J. Quinney College of Law of the University of Utah. In 2002, President George W. Bush nominated him to serve as a judge for the Tenth Circuit, to a seat vacated by Judge Stephen H. Anderson. The Senate confirmed his nomination on November 15, 2002. Seven years later, McConnell resigned from the Court to serve as the director for the Stanford Constitutional Law Center.