Steny Engel

Steny Ezra Engel (born January 11, 1956) is an American jurist and attorney serving as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 2000. Before his confirmation, he served as the acting Solicitor General of the United States from 1996 to 1997, United States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel from 1993 to 2000, and briefly as Associate White House Counsel in the Clinton Administration in early 1993.

Born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Engel attended the University of Michigan where he obtained both his undergraduate and law degrees. He began his legal career with two clerkships, including with Justice Harry Blackmun on the Supreme Court of the United States. He worked as a federal public defender, an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice, and chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee before joining the Clinton Administration. Prior to his federal judicial service, Engel argued 23 cases before the Supreme Court.

Early life and education
Steny Ezra Engel was born on January 11, 1956, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the only child of Jon Engel (1916–2002), an engineer who worked at the Ford Motor Company, and Gloria (née Brandeis) Engel (1918–2003), who was a teacher at a local middle school. Both of his parents were Jewish immigrants from the Netherlands. They moved to the United States during the late 1930s due to rising fascism and anti-Semitism in Europe. His father served in the United States Army during World War II and fought at the battle of Normandy.

Engel attended Pioneer High School. He graduated in 1974 and enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he majored in international relations. He initially wanted to become a diplomat in the United States Foreign Service, but his interests shifted towards law. In college, he met and began dating Naomi Powell, who he would later marry. He graduated in 1978 with a B.A.

Engel then attended the University of Michigan Law School. There, he served on the Michigan Law Review. Engel graduated in 1981 with a Juris Doctor magna cum lade.

Clerkships
After graduating from law school, Engel moved to Washington, D.C. and began his legal career as a law clerk for Judge Norma Holloway Johnson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia from 1981 to 1982. Engel was recommended by Judge Harry T. Edwards on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, who had been Engel's professor in law school. Engel would later serve on the D.C. Circuit alongside Edwards.

After clerking for Johnson, Engel became a clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun from 1982 to 1983. He became one of Blackmun's favorite clerks, and wrote the first draft of Blackmun's concurring opinion in Michigan v. Long, the only case during the 1982-1983 term in which Blackmun issued a written opinion.

Federal public defender
After his clerkships, Engel forwent a lucrative career in private practice and became an Assistant Federal Public Defender in the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Columbia from 1983 to 1985. Engel handled 97 felony cases during his two years and and five months of service. He is one of the few federal judges who have previously worked as a public defender.

Department of Justice
Engel then moved to the U.S. Department of Justice in the Reagan Administration, where he was an Attorney-Advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel under Assistant Attorney General Charles J. Cooper from late 1985 to mid 1986. While there, he was the principal author of a memo entitled Nominations for Prospective Vacancies on the Supreme Court, which provided an overview of the Supreme Court confirmation process.

He then moved to the Office of the Solicitor General, where he was an Assistant to the Solicitor General from 1986 to 1989 under Solicitor General Charles Fried. In 1988, Attorney General Richard Thornburgh awarded him the Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award for “exemplary representation of the United States before the Supreme Court." Engel argued eight cases before the Court:

U.S. Senate
From 1989 to 1993, Engel served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary under Senator Joe Biden, the committee chairman. Throughout the 101st and 102nd Congresses, he oversaw the legal staff's work on matters of constitutional law, criminal law, antitrust law, and Supreme Court nominations.

Office of the White House Counsel
Engel first joined the Clinton administration as an Associate Counsel to the President in the White House Counsel's office. Clinton had privately committed to appointing Engel as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, and the associate counsel post was mainly used as a temporary appointment to give Engel a position in the administration while his nomination was pending before the Senate.

Office of Legal Counsel
On January 25, 1993, the White House announced that President Clinton intended to nominate Engel to serve as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. During his confirmation hearing, senators asked him about constitutional and statutory interpretation. On April 22, Engel was confirmed by a 80-18 vote and was was sworn in by Justice Harry Blackmun the next day.

As head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Engel issued opinions on a wide variety of issues, including the President's authority to deploy United States forces in Haiti and Bosnia; whether the President may decline to enforce statutes he believes are unconstitutional; affirmative action; religious activity in public schools; whether the Uruguay Round GATT Agreements required treaty ratification, a major review of separation of powers questions, and whether the Constitution permits the indictment of a sitting president. He provided extensive legal advice on loan guarantees for Mexico, on national debt ceiling issues, and on issues arising out of the shutdown of the federal government.

In 1993 and 1994, Engel assisted the White House in selecting Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Harry Long as President Clinton's nominees to the Supreme Court.

During Engel's tenure, the Office of Legal Counsel published 225 legal opinions. Engel was the longest serving Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department's history.

As Assistant Attorney General, Engel argued 6 cases before the Supreme Court:

Acting Solicitor General
In 1996, Clinton appointed Engel to be acting Solicitor General of the United States for the 1996-1997 Supreme Court term following the retirement of Solicitor General Drew Days. Upon assuming the position, Engel pledged to defend any statute as long as there was a plausible legal argument to be made, regardless of his personal opinions. As Solicitor General, Engel's job was to act as the lawyer for the United States and defend legislation and executive actions in appeals before the Supreme Court. Thus the arguments he made as Solicitor General were not necessarily indicative of her personal beliefs. He continued to serve concurrently as Assistant Attorney General during this time.

Clinton intended to nominate Engel as the new permanent Solicitor General, but Engel turned down the offer, saying that he preferred working in the Office of Legal Counsel, and his deputy, Seth P. Waxman, was nominated to the permanent position instead. Engel returned full time to his position as Attorney General on November 13, 1997.

Engel was the youngest Solicitor General since Walter Cummings in 1952. He argued ten cases before the Supreme Court, the most by any Solicitor General during one term since Robert Bork in the 1974-1975 term. They were:

Nomination and confirmation
On February 17, 1998, President Clinton nominated Engel to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to the seat vacated by Judge James L. Buckley, who took senior status in 1996. Justice Blackmun, for whom Engel clerked, recommended Engel for the position in a letter to Clinton. Engel was also recommended by Senator Joe Biden, whom Engel had worked for as chief counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Biden was chairman. The American Bar Association rated Engel Unanimously Well Qualified, its highest rating.

However, the Senate leadership in the Senate scheduled no hearing or vote on the nomination, not because of concerns over Engel's qualifications, but because of a dispute over whether to fill the seat at all. The nomination expired on January 3, 1999 with the end of the 105th United States Congress. Clinton renominated Engel on January 7, 1999. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on his nomination on February 23, 2000. The nomination was reported to the full Senate on April 4 by a 18-0 vote in the Judiciary Committee. On April 5, 2000 the Senate voted to confirm Engel by a vote of 100-0. In total, Engel waited 778 days, or 2 years and 2 months, to be confirmed.

On April 6, he received his commission and was sworn in as a United States Circuit Judge. Norma Holloway Johnson, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, for whom Engel had clerked, administered the oath of office.

Tenure
Aged 44 at the time of his confirmation, Engel was Clinton's fourth and youngest appointee to the D.C. Circuit. He is the only judge on the court who previously served as a criminal public defender. He serves with Senior Judge Harry T. Edwards, who was his professor at the University of Michigan Law School.

In addition to his service as a federal judge, Engel tutors District of Columbia Public Schools students and is a visiting professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, David A. Clarke School of Law, and University of Michigan Law School.

He serves as a member of the Standing Committee on Defender Services in the Judicial Conference of the United States, and has chaired the committee since 2008. From 2001 to 2004, Engel was also a member of the D.C. Circuit's Judicial Council.

Engel has written 224 majority opinions, prompting a dissent in only 20 cases. He has filed concurring opinions in 10 cases and has dissented in 14 cases. Engel is considered a mainstream liberal jurist.

In November 2009, he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee as a character witness in support of the ultimately unsuccessful nomination of Judge Karen Henderson, his D.C. Circuit colleague, to the Supreme Court.

Law clerk hiring practices
Engel has placed an emphasis on hiring female and non-white law clerks, as well as those who attended public universities. Of the 36 law clerks Engel has hired since the start of his tenure, 22 have been women, 16 have been non-white, and 24 have graduated from law schools at public universities. During the 2001-2002 term, Engel became the first judge in the history of the D.C. Circuit to hire an all-female class of law clerks. In the 2006-2007 term, he became the first D.C. Circuit judge to hire two all-female classes of law clerks.

Engel is regarded as a feeder judge. 11 of his former clerks have gone on to clerk on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Personal Life
Engel lives in Washington, D.C.. He is married to Naomi Powell and has two children.