Hon. Nancy Gertner

Senior Lecturer on Law, Harvard University, Former U.S. District Judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts

Judge Gertner is a senior lecturer on Law at Harvard University. For 17 years, she served as a federal judge for the District of Massachusetts. In 2012, Gertner was appointed to the ACS board of directors.

At Harvard, Gertner teaches courses on criminal law, criminal procedure, forensic science, and sentencing. She continues to write and lecture about women’s issues around the world. She has also worked as a professor at Yale Law School, and is a Leadership Council Member of the International Center for Research on Women.

Gertner is the author of an autobiography “In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate,” and co-author of “The Law of Juries with attorney Judith Mizner.” She has also published articles and book chapters on sentencing, discrimination, forensic evidence, women's rights, and the jury system.

Gertner received the Thurgood Marshall Award from the American Bar Association’s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, and the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement from the ABA’s Commission on the Status of Women in the Profession. She has also received the Morton A. Brody Distinguished Judicial Service Award from the Colby College Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs, the Massachusetts Bar Association's Hennessey Award for judicial excellence, the Arabella Babb Mansfield Award from the National Association of Women Lawyers, and the Leila J. Robinson Award of the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts. She was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Brandeis University in 2011.

Gertner received her J.D. and M.A. in political science from Yale University. She received her B.A. from Barnard College (Columbia University). She clerked for the Hon. Luther Swygert of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.