Fed Circ confirms Cunningham as its first Black judge
IP litigator Tiffany Cunningham has made history by becoming the first-ever Black judge at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
The Perkins Coie partner’s nomination was confirmed by a bipartisan Senate vote on Monday, July 19, in a 63-33 vote, delivering a milestone in the patent-focused court's 40-year-old history.
The Federal Circuit is the only US federal appeals court to never appoint a black judge. Cunningham’s appointment also creates an even six-to-six split between male and female Federal Circuit judges.
In March, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Cunningham, a decision broadly welcomed by patent lawyers. While Cunningham received bipartisan support from the senate's judiciary committee, she received six “no” votes from Republicans when the committee advanced her nomination in June.
During a May hearing before the judiciary committee, Cunningham called the Federal Circuit seat her “dream job”, reported Reuters.
“I recall when I was fortunate enough to clerk for the court in 2001 and 2002, one of the first days walking around and seeing the pictures of the judges on the walls," Cunningham said. "And I saw a court that had fine, fine jurists, but was very homogeneous.”
“At that point in time, I kind of put it in my mental 'vision board' that I hope that one day I could be a judge at that court,” Cunningham said.
At Perkins Coie, Cunningham served as a trial and appellate counsel for Fortune 500 companies, small enterprises, and individuals in complex patent and trade secret disputes.
She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and also earned a BSc in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which would make her one of the few judges on the Federal Circuit with a technical degree.
Before joining Perkins, Cunningham worked at Kirkland & Ellis, where she was part of a team representing BlackBerry that succeeded in reversing a nearly $150 million jury verdict against the tech company in a patent suit.
Speaking to WIPR, her former colleague, Kirkland & Ellis partner Ellisen Turner, welcomed the appointment as a milestone with significant implications for future generations.
“Judicial appointments represent long-term, fundamental structural changes that have a modelling effect for generations to come. Tiffany Cunningham is an amazing lawyer…this is going to have a ripple effect for generations of young black women,” he said.
Cunnigham is named in WIPR’s 2021 Influential Women in IP. The full list will be published in the forthcoming inaugural edition of WIPR Diversity.
In a video interview with WIPR, Kirkland & Ellis’s Turner explores Cunnigham’s historic achievement in depth and the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement.
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