Graduation 2004

JUDGE SONIA SOTOMAYOR TO DELIVER COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL'S
2004 GRADUATION ADDRESS

NEW YORK - Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the US Court of Appeals' Second Circuit will deliver the keynote address at the graduation ceremonies for Columbia Law School, on May 18 at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall in New York.

For the past six years, Sonia Sotomayor has been a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. From 1992 until her recent appointment, she served as a United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York.

Judge Sotomayor began her legal career in 1979 as an Assistant District Attorney in New York County. In 1984 and until her first judicial appointment, she practiced with the law firm of Pavia & Harcourt as an associate and later partner. Her focus at the firm was on intellectual property issues and international litigation and arbitration of commercial and commodity export trading cases. She also served as a member of the Second Circuit Task Force on Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts and was formerly on the Board of Directors of the State of New York Mortgage Agency, the New York City Campaign Finance Board, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Maternity Center Association.

Highlights of the ceremony also include the receipt of the Willis L.M. Reese Prize for excellence in teaching by Samuel Issacharoff, the Harold R. Medina Professor in Procedural Jurisprudence at Columbia University. He is one of the pioneers in the law of political process, where his Law of Democracy casebook and dozens of articles have helped to create a vibrant new area of constitutional law.

Seating is reserved for graduating Law School students and their guests. For more information, please contact Student Services at (212) 854-2395. Columbia University will hold separate commencement ceremonies on the Morningside Heights campus on May 19. Please see www.columbia.edu for more information on the University's ceremony.

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