Diane Wood

Diane Pamela Wood
Wood in 2008
Judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals
Incumbent
Assumed office  1995
Nominated by	Bill Clinton
Preceded by	William Joseph Bauer
Born	July 4, 1950 (1950-07-04) (age 59) Plainfield, New Jersey
Nationality	United States
Spouse(s)	Dennis J. Hutchinson Robert L. Sufit
Alma mater	University of Texas at Austin University of Texas School of Law

Diane Pamela Wood (born July 4, 1950) is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.

Personal

Wood is married to Robert Sufit, a professor of neurology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, to whom she was introduced by her fellow Seventh Circuit Judge Ilana Rovner.^[1] She previously was married in 1978 to Dennis Hutchinson, a professor at the University of Chicago School of Law, from whom she was later divorced.^[1] Wood married her first husband, Steve Van, while both were students in law school.^[2] Wood has three children with Hutchinson and three stepchildren.^[3] She plays oboe and English horn in the North Shore Chamber Orchestra in Evanston, Illinois and in the Chicago Bar Association Symphony Orchestra in Chicago, Illinois.

Wood lives in Hinsdale, Illinois.^[1]

Early life and family

Wood was born in Plainfield, New Jersey and grew up in nearby Westfield, New Jersey. Her father was an accountant at Exxon, and her mother worked at the local Girl Scout Council. She is the middle of three children; she has an older sister Judy and a younger brother Bob. When Wood was sixteen, Exxon transferred her father’s job to Houston, Texas, and the family moved there. Wood graduated as valedictorian from Westchester High School in 1968 and went on to the University of Texas at Austin, in the Plan II honors program. She graduated in May 1971, having earned a B.A. with highest honors and special honors in English. At the time, she intended to go on to graduate studies in comparative literature. However, she decided to go to law school instead, and enrolled in the University of Texas School of Law in 1972.^[4]

Education and legal training

Wood earned her J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 1975 with Order of the Coif. She clerked for Judge Irving Goldberg of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals from 1975 to 1976 and for Associate Justice Harry Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1976 to 1977.

Professional career

Wood was an attorney-advisor for the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State from 1977 to 1978. She was in private practice at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. from 1978 to 1980.^[5][6] She was an assistant professor of law at Georgetown University from 1980 to 1981 and on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School from 1981 to 1995, serving as Associate Dean from 1989 to 1992. Wood continues to teach at the law school, along with fellow 7th Circuit judges Frank Easterbrook and Richard Posner.^[7]

Wood was a special assistant to the Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice from 1985 to 1987. Later she served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for international, appellate, and policy in the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division from 1993 to 1995.

Wood holds memberships in the American Law Institute, the International Academy of Comparative Law, the American Society of International Law, and the American Bar Association. She has served on the governing councils of the ABA’s Section of Antitrust Law and its Section of International Law and Practice. Wood has pursued various law reform projects through the American Bar Association and the Brookings Institution Project on Civil Justice Reform. She was also instrumental in developing the University of Chicago’s first policy on sexual harassment.

Federal judicial service

Wood was nominated by President Bill Clinton on March 31, 1995, to a seat vacated when William Joseph Bauer took senior status. She was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate and received her commission on June 30, 1995. Wood was considered a likely candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court in the event President Obama was given the opportunity to appoint someone to the bench.^[8][9][10] The speculation intensified after Justice David Souter's retirement announcement,^[11][12][13] and Wood was the first candidate interviewed for the post by President Obama, who met with her at the White House while she was visiting from Chicago.^[14]

Noteworthy rulings

• Walker v. O'Brien, 216 F.3d 626 (7th Cir. 2000): Wood, writing for the panel, held that the requirements of the Prison Litigation Reform Act do not apply to properly characterized habeas corpus actions because those actions are not “civil actions” within the meaning of the Act.

• Fornalik v. Perryman, 223 F.3d 523 (7th Cir. 2000): Wood, writing for the panel, held that an Immigration and Naturalization Service district office order putting a minor alien in deferred status pending an application to proceed as an abused child of a visa recipient under the Violence Against Women Act took precedence over an earlier removal order issued by another INS district office.

• Goldwasser v. Ameritech Corp., 222 F.3d 390 (7th Cir. 2000): Wood, writing for the panel, held that a violation of the 1996 Telecommunications Act was not sufficient to state a claim under general antitrust laws.

• Illinois ex rel. Ryan v. Brown, 227 F.3d 1042 (7th Cir. 2000): Wood, writing for the panel, held that the State of Illinois itself, rather than taxpayer plaintiffs, was the correct party to sue under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to recover losses stemming from a corrupt loan to public official.

• Solid Waste Agency v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, 191 F.3d 845 (1999): Wood, writing for the panel, held that the decision to regulate isolated waters based on their actual use as a habitat by migratory birds was within Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court reversed. 531 U.S. 159 (2001).

• National Organization for Women v. Scheidler, 267 F.3d 687 (7th Cir. 2001): Wood, writing for the panel, held that the district court did not err in concluding that the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act authorized private plaintiffs to seek injunctive relief. In addition, the court held that the injunction issued by the district prohibiting violent conduct by anti-abortion protesters struck the proper balance and avoided any risk of curtailing activities protected by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court reversed. 537 U.S. 393 (2003).

• St. John's United Church of Christ v. City of Chicago, 502 F.3d 616 (7th Cir. 2007): Wood, writing for the majority, held that the O'Hare Modernization Act’s amendment of the Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act did not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment because it was a law of general applicability that did not target the plaintiff Church.

• United States v. Warner & Ryan, 498 F.3d 666 (7th Cir. 2007): Wood, writing for the majority, affirmed the convictions on various criminal charges of former Illinois Governor George Ryan and his associate Lawrence E. Warner.

• Bloch v. Frischholz, 533 F.3d 562 (7th Cir. 2008) (dissent). The panel majority held that a condominium association rule prohibiting objects outside of owners’ doors was facially neutral, and that the Fair Housing Act does not require a religious accommodation for those of Jewish faith wishing to put mezuzot on their doorposts. In dissent, Wood argued plaintiffs had established a claim for intentional religious discrimination under the Fair Housing Act, as there was sufficient evidence in the record to conclude that the rule was being applied in a way that would constitute a constructive eviction of observant Jews. The full Circuit reversed the ruling of the panel.

• Germano v. International Profit Association, 544 F.3d 798 (7th Cir. 2008). Wood, writing for the panel, held that statements transmitted by deaf individuals using a communications assistant in a telecommunications relay service conversation are not hearsay.

Writings

Wood has been described as a "rock star of the written word" [1] and has written extensively in various areas of the law, and a full bibliography can be found at the University of Chicago Law School website. Some representative works include:

• The Bedrock of Individual Rights in Times of Natural Disaster, 51 How. L.J. 747 (2008).
• ‘Original Intent’ Versus ‘Evolution’, The Scrivener 7 (Summer 2005) (also published in Green Bag Almanac & Reader 267 (2007)).
• Our 18th Century Constitution in the 21st Century World, 80 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1079 (2005).
• Reflections on the Judicial Oath, 8 Green Bag 2d 177 (2005).
• The Rule of Law in Times of Stress, 70 U. Chi. L. Rev. 455 (2003).
• International Harmonization of Antitrust Law: The Tortoise or the Hare?, 3 Chi. J. Int’l L. 391 (2002).
• Sex Discrimination in Life and Law, 1999 U. Chi. Legal F. 1.
• Generalist Judges in a Specialized World, 50 SMU L. Rev. 1755 (1997).
• The Impossible Dream: Real International Antitrust, 1992 U. Chi. Legal F. 277.
• ‘Unfair’ Trade Injury: A Competition-Based Approach, 41 Stan. L. Rev. 1153 (1989).
• Class Actions: Joinder or Representational Device?, 1983 Sup. Ct. Rev. 459.

See also

• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
• Barack Obama Supreme Court candidates

References