President Obama has nominated Brooklyn Law School Adjunct Professor of Law Judge Evan J. Wallach to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Judge Wallach has been a judge on the United States Court of International Trade since 1995. A press release from the White House says “Judge Wallach has distinguished himself throughout his legal career in both the public and private sectors. He possesses a keen intellect and a commitment to fairness and integrity that will serve him well as a judge on the Federal Circuit.”
Judge Wallach has been an adjunct law professor on the law of war at numerous institutions, including Brooklyn Law School and New York Law School, since 1997. He has published a number of articles, including Drop by Drop: Forgetting the History of Water Torture in U.S. Courts, 45 Colum. J. Transnat’l L. 468 (2006-2007) and The Procedural and Evidentiary Rules of the Post World War II War Crimes Trials: Did They Provide an Outline for International Legal Procedure? 37 The Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 851.
In 1976, after completing law school, Judge Wallach joined the law firm of Lionel Sawyer & Collins in Las Vegas as a litigation associate, becoming a partner in 1983. He took a leave of absence from the firm from 1980 to 1981 to study at Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and then another leave of absence from 1987 to 1988 to serve as general counsel and public policy advisor to Senator Harry Reid. From 1989 to 1995, Judge Wallach served in the Nevada Army National Guard as an attorney-advisor, providing legal counsel for his brigade’s commanders and all brigade personnel. In 1991, he entered active service during the Persian Gulf War, serving as an attorney-advisor in the International Affairs Division of the Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Army at the Pentagon. Judge Wallach was appointed to the Court of International Trade in 1995. Since that time, he has presided over more than 230 cases to verdict or judgment addressing questions of international trade and customs law. He has also frequently sat by designation on several federal trials and appellate courts, hearing more than 80 cases on the Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, and Ninth Circuits.
