For Immediate Release: Date: May 3, 2023 | Contact: Priya Purandare, Executive Director |
WASHINGTON – Today, President Biden nominated Judge Loren L. AliKhan to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and Susan K. DeClercq to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. If confirmed, Judge AliKhan would be the first South Asian woman to serve on U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the only active AAPI woman judge on that court. Ms. DeClercq would be the first federal judge of East Asian descent in Michigan.
“NAPABA congratulates Judge AliKhan and Susan DeClercq on their nominations,” said Sandra Leung, president of NAPABA. “Judge AliKhan is a highly respected jurist with exceptional service to the citizens of Washington DC. Ms. DeClercq is an experienced prosecutor with experience in both private practice and corporate law. We applaud President Biden for nominating this slate of highly qualified AAPI nominees. We urge the Senate to confirm them swiftly.”
President Biden nominated Judge AliKhan to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on September 21, 2021, and the U.S. Senate confirmed her with bi-partisan support on February 22, 2022. Upon her confirmation, Judge AliKhan was the first AAPI judge to sit on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Before her confirmation, she served as the Solicitor General of the District of Columbia, where she directed the District’s appellate litigation and has overseen more than 1,800 appeals before the D.C. Court of Appeals, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge AliKhan has the support of NAPABA’s affiliate, the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of the Greater Washington DC Region. She has been recognized with the Public Sector Trailblazer Award by the South Asian Bar Association of Washington D.C. and previously clerked for the Hon. Thomas L. Ambro on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and the Hon. Louis Pollack on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. AliKhan is a graduate of Bard College at Simon’s Rock and the Georgetown University Law Center.
Susan K. DeClercq has been Director and Counsel of Special Investigations at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan since 2022. Ms. DeClercq previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Civil Division since March 2014. Before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office in September 2004, Ms. DeClercq was an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, and Flom in Washington, D.C., and she clerked for Judge Avern Cohn on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Ms. DeClercq received her J.D., magna cum laude, from Wayne State University School of Law in 1999 and her B.A. from the University of Michigan in 1995.
NAPABA thanks Senators Stabenow and Peters of Michigan and Delegate Norton of Washington, D.C., for recommending and supporting these nominees.
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