WilmerHale Partner Is First Openly Gay Man Nominated to US Appeals Court
President Obama made history last week when he nominated a WilmerHale appellate litigation partner to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
The nominee, Edward DuMont, is the first openly gay person to be nominated to a federal appeals court, according to Metro Weekly and the Keen News Service. DuMont indicated his involvement in gay and lesbian groups in his Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire.
UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, writing at this blog the Volokh Conspiracy, calls DuMont as “the sort of moderate liberal that conservatives have every reason to like and get along with.”
Before joining WilmerHale, DuMont was an assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General and an associate deputy attorney general, according to The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times. He also clerked for Judge Richard Posner of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He has argued 18 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
