Steven James Menashi (born January 15, 1979) is an American lawyer who serves as a

United States circuit judge In the United States, federal judges are judges who serve on courts established under Article Three of the U.S. Constitution. They include the chief justice and the associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the circuit judges of the U.S. ...

of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate ju ...

. Prior to his appointment to the court by President Donald Trump, he was an official in the

Trump administration Donald Trump's tenure as the 45th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican from New York City, took office following his Electoral College victory ...

Early life and education

Menashi was born in 1979 in

White Plains, New York (Always Faithful) , image_seal = WhitePlainsSeal.png , seal_link = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = U.S. state, State , su ...

. Menashi's grandparents were

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

immigrants from

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

and

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

; his maternal grandfather's relatives were murdered in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. Menashi graduated from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

in 2001 with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

'' magna cum laude''. He worked at the

Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; abbreviated as Hoover) is an American public policy think tank and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, an ...

from 2001 to 2004, and from 2004 to 2005 he was an editorial writer for ''

The New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New Yor ...

.'' He then attended

Stanford Law School Stanford Law School (Stanford Law or SLS) is the law school of Stanford University, a private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, it is regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world. Stanford La ...

, where he was an editor of the ''

Stanford Law Review The ''Stanford Law Review'' (SLR) is a legal journal produced independently by Stanford Law School students. The journal was established in 1948 with future U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher as its first president. The review produces s ...

''. He graduated in 2008 with a Juris Doctor and was inducted into the

Order of the Coif The Order of the Coif is an honor society for United States law school graduates. The name is a reference to the ancient English order of advocates, the serjeants-at-law, whose courtroom attire included a coif—a white lawn or silk skullcap, whi ...

Legal career

Menashi served as a law clerk to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2008 to 2009. From 2009 to 2010, he was at

Georgetown University Law Center The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and ...

as an Olin-Searle Fellow, a program offered by the

Federalist Society The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies (abbreviated as FedSoc) is an American conservative and libertarian legal organization that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Headquarter ...

. He then clerked for Justice Samuel Alito of the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

from 2010 to 2011. From 2011 to 2016, Menashi worked in the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

office of the law firm

Kirkland & Ellis Kirkland & Ellis LLP is an American multinational law firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1909, Kirkland & Ellis is the largest law firm in the world by revenue and the seventh-largest by number of attorneys, and was the first la ...

, where he became a partner. While at Kirkland & Ellis, Menashi was a Research Fellow at the

New York University School of Law New York University School of Law (NYU Law) is the law school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. Established in 1835, it is the oldest law school in New York City and the oldest surviving law school in N ...

and the Opperman Institute for Judicial Administration for three years, from 2013 to 2016. From 2016 to 2017, Menashi was an assistant professor of law at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, where he focused on administrative law and civil procedure.

Trump administration

He took a leave of absence beginning in 2017, to become the Deputy General Counsel for Postsecondary Service at the

United States Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Departmen ...

, and to serve as

General Counsel A general counsel, also known as chief counsel or chief legal officer (CLO), is the chief in-house lawyer for a company or a governmental department. In a company, the person holding the position typically reports directly to the CEO, and their ...

on an acting basis for that department as of May 24. At the Department of Education, Menashi helped devise a plan by the Department of Education to deny debt relief for thousands of students who were cheated by for-profit colleges. The plan, which used students' private Social Security data, was ruled illegal by a federal judge. His role as acting general counsel ended on April 23, 2018, after Carlos G. Muñiz was confirmed to that position by the U.S. Senate. In September 2018, Menashi moved to the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

to become a

Special Assistant to the President The Executive Office of the President (EOP) comprises the offices and agencies that support the work of the president at the center of the executive branch of the United States federal government. The EOP consists of several offices and agenci ...

and Associate Counsel to the President.

Federal judicial service

On August 14, 2019, President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

announced his intent to nominate Menashi to serve as a United States Circuit Judge of the

. On September 9, 2019, his nomination was sent to the Senate. That same day, the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of aca ...

rated Menashi as "well qualified," its highest rating. He has been nominated to the seat vacated by

Dennis Jacobs Dennis Jacobs (born February 28, 1944) is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Education and career Born and raised in New York City, Jacobs graduated from Forest Hills High School ...

, who assumed

senior status Senior status is a form of semi- retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of service as a federal judge must be at leas ...

on May 31, 2019. On September 11, 2019, a heated hearing on Menashi's nomination was held before the

Senate Judiciary Committee The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nominations ...

. During his hearing, Menashi was criticized by senators from both parties for refusing to answer their questions regarding the legal advice he gave on the Trump administration's immigration policies. He was also questioned about an article he had written in the '' University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law'' about

ethnonationalism Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric (and in some cases an ethnocratic) approach to various politi ...

and

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. On November 7, 2019, his nomination was reported out of committee by a 12–10 vote. On November 13, 2019, the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

invoked

cloture Cloture (, also ), closure or, informally, a guillotine, is a motion or process in parliamentary procedure aimed at bringing debate to a quick end. The cloture procedure originated in the French National Assembly, from which the name is taken. ' ...

by a 51–44 vote. On November 14, 2019, his nomination was confirmed by a 51–41 vote. He received his judicial commission on the same day.

Notable cases

In June 2022, Menashi dissented when the Second Circuit upheld the corporate prosecution of environmental lawyer Steven Donziger.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Menashi, Steven 1979 births Living people 21st-century American judges 21st-century American lawyers American people of Iraqi-Jewish descent American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Dartmouth College alumni Antonin Scalia Law School faculty Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit People associated with Kirkland & Ellis Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States Lawyers from New York City Lawyers from Washington, D.C. New York University School of Law faculty People from White Plains, New York Stanford Law School alumni Trump administration personnel United States court of appeals judges appointed by Donald Trump