Diane Pamela Wood

Diane Pamela Wood is an American attorney and legal scholar who served as a United States Circuit Judge on the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1995 to 2022, including a tenure as Chief Judge from 2013 to 2020. Appointed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, she was the second woman to serve on the Seventh Circuit and became recognized as an influential voice on the court, particularly on matters of antitrust law, international law, and civil rights. Following her retirement from the bench, she has continued her academic work as a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School and serves as director of the American Law Institute.

Early life and legal career

Diane Pamela Wood was born on July 4, 1950, in Plainfield, New Jersey, to Lucille Padmore Wood and Kenneth Reed Wood. She grew up in nearby Westfield, New Jersey, as the second of three children, with an older sister and a younger brother. Her father worked as an accountant at Exxon, while her mother was employed by the Washington Rock Girl Scout Council. When Wood was sixteen years old, her family relocated to Houston, Texas. She completed her secondary education at Westchester High School in Houston, graduating as valedictorian in 1968.

Wood pursued her undergraduate education at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned a bachelor's degree in English with high honors in 1972. She continued her studies at the University of Texas School of Law, where she distinguished herself academically and professionally. During law school, she served as an editor of the Texas Law Review and participated in the Women's Legal Caucus. Wood graduated from law school in 1975 with high honors and was inducted into the Order of the Coif, a national honor society recognizing academic excellence in law. She was also among the first women at the University of Texas to be admitted as a member of the Friar Society.

Following law school, Wood embarked on a distinguished legal career that included prestigious clerkships, government service, private practice, and academia. From 1975 to 1976, she clerked for Judge Irving Loeb Goldberg of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She then served as a law clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court from 1976 to 1977, becoming one of the first women to clerk for a Supreme Court justice. After completing her Supreme Court clerkship, Wood worked as an attorney-advisor for the Office of the Legal Adviser at the United States Department of State from 1977 to 1978. She then entered private practice, working at the Washington, D.C. law firm Covington & Burling from 1978 to 1980.

Wood transitioned to academia in 1980, beginning as an assistant professor of law at Georgetown University, where she taught from 1980 to 1981. In 1981, she moved to Chicago and joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School, becoming the third woman ever hired as a law professor at that institution and the only woman on the faculty when she arrived. She advanced through the academic ranks, serving as Professor of Law from 1989 to 1992 and as Associate Dean from 1990 to 1995. In 1992, she was appointed the Harold J. and Marion F. Green Professor of International Legal Studies, becoming the first woman at the University of Chicago Law School to hold a named chair, a position she held until her appointment to the federal bench in 1995.

During her academic career, Wood also maintained significant involvement in government service. She served as a special assistant to the Assistant Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice from 1985 to 1987. Later, from 1993 to 1995, she held the position of Deputy Assistant Attorney General for international, appellate, and policy matters in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice.

Wood's professional activities extended beyond teaching and government service. She became a member of the American Law Institute and served on its Council. She was also active in the American Society of International Law and was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where she served as Chair of the Council. Through the American Bar Association, she participated on the governing councils of both the Section of Antitrust Law and the Section of International Law and Practice. She contributed to various law reform initiatives through the American Bar Association and the Brookings Institution Project on Civil Justice Reform. At the University of Chicago, she played an instrumental role in developing the institution's first policy on sexual harassment. Before joining the Department of Justice and the federal bench, she was a member of Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women.

Federal appellate service

President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, nominated Wood to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on March 31, 1995, to fill a seat that became available when Judge William J. Bauer assumed senior status. The Senate confirmed her nomination on June 30, 1995, and she received her commission the same day. Wood became the second woman ever to serve on the Seventh Circuit.

During her tenure on the court, Wood developed a reputation for building consensus among her colleagues and for her ability to rally other judges around her legal positions. She served alongside other prominent jurists, including Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook, both known for their conservative judicial philosophies. Observers characterized Wood as providing an intellectual counterweight to these colleagues, with her approach to the law offering a different perspective on the court's deliberations. Despite these differences in judicial philosophy, Wood maintained her connection to the University of Chicago Law School throughout her judicial service, continuing to teach as a senior lecturer alongside Easterbrook and Posner, who also held similar teaching positions.

Wood's service on the Seventh Circuit included a term as Chief Judge, beginning on October 1, 2013, and concluding on July 3, 2020. In this administrative role, she oversaw the operations of the circuit, which has jurisdiction over federal appeals from Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

During the early years of the Obama administration, Wood was considered as a potential nominee to the United States Supreme Court. When Justice David Souter announced his retirement, speculation intensified that Wood might be appointed to fill the vacancy. She was the first candidate President Obama interviewed for the position, meeting with him at the White House while visiting from Chicago. When Justice John Paul Stevens subsequently announced his retirement at the end of the October 2009 term, Wood's name was again prominently mentioned as a likely replacement. Ultimately, however, she was not nominated for either vacancy.

On December 9, 2021, Wood announced her intention to assume senior status upon the confirmation of her successor. She took senior status on September 7, 2022, reducing her caseload while remaining available to hear cases. She fully retired from the bench on April 30, 2024, concluding nearly three decades of federal judicial service.

Jurisprudence and legacy

Wood's judicial career spanned a period of significant legal developments in areas including antitrust law, international law, and civil rights. Her background as a scholar specializing in international legal studies and antitrust matters, combined with her experience in the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division, informed her approach to cases in these areas. Throughout her service on the Seventh Circuit, she participated in numerous decisions that shaped federal law within the circuit's jurisdiction.

The University of Chicago Law School, where Wood has maintained her affiliation as a senior lecturer, recognized her contributions to the federal judiciary in January 2021 by announcing plans to honor her twenty-fifth anniversary on the Seventh Circuit with a special edition of essays by her colleagues published in the University of Chicago Law Review. This recognition reflected the esteem in which she was held by the academic legal community.

Following her retirement from the bench, Wood has continued her involvement in legal scholarship and institutional leadership. She serves as director of the American Law Institute, an organization dedicated to clarifying and improving the law through scholarly work and the development of restatements and model codes. She also continues her teaching at the University of Chicago Law School as a senior lecturer, maintaining her long association with the institution where she has taught for more than four decades.

Wood's career represents a significant contribution to American law through multiple channels: as a scholar and educator shaping future generations of lawyers, as a government attorney working on antitrust and international legal matters, and as a federal appellate judge deciding cases and contributing to the development of circuit precedent over nearly three decades. Her service as one of the early women in several of these roles, including as one of the first female Supreme Court clerks and the second woman on the Seventh Circuit, marked important milestones in the increasing participation of women in the legal profession and the federal judiciary.