ACS & FedSoc Present: Judges Newsom, Pallmeyer '79, and Rowland '88 (Hinton Moot Court Finals)

Please join ACS and FedSoc in conversation with Judges Newsom, Pallmeyer, and Rowland.

Judge Kevin Newsom is a member of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He sits in Birmingham, Alabama. Before his appointment to the bench, Judge Newsom was the head of the appellate practice group at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP and, before that, the Solicitor General of Alabama. As a practicing lawyer, Judge Newsom argued four cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, and nearly 40 more in the United States Courts of Appeals and state supreme and appellate courts. Judge Newsom graduated summa cum laude from Samford University and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Following law school, Judge Newsom clerked for Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice David H. Souter of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer (‘79) is a senior federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Valparaiso University in 1976 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School in 1979. Before taking the bench, Judge Pallmeyer was a law clerk to Rosalie E. Wahl, Minnesota Supreme Court Justice, from 1979 to 1980. Judge Pallmeyer was in private practice in commercial litigation in Chicago, Illinois from 1980 to 1985 at the law firm of Hopkins & Sutter (later acquired by Foley & Lardner). Judge Pallmeyer then served as an administrative law judge on the Illinois Human Rights Commission from 1985 to 1991. Judge Pallmeyer previously served as Chief Judge of the Northern District of Illinois, and was the first woman to head the federal court in its 200-year history. 

Judge Mary Rowland (‘88) serves on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. She served as a Magistrate Judge for the same court from October 2012 to August 2019. Judge Rowland received her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in 1984 and received her Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School in 1988. After law school, she clerked for District Judge Julian A. Cook Jr. of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Judge Rowland then served for ten years in the Chicago office of the Federal Defender; first as a staff attorney and later as the office’s chief appellate attorney. In 2000, she joined the law firm Hughes, Socol, Piers, Resnick & Dym, where she led the criminal defense practice and litigated high-profile civil cases.