Betty Binns Fletcher

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Betty Binns Fletcher (born 1923, Tacoma, Washington) is a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a federal appeals court based in San Francisco, California.

[edit] Background and Education

Judge Fletcher currently resides in Washington State. She attended Stanford University as an undergraduate. She graduated at the young age of 19 in 1942, having completed one year of her law degree in addition to her bachelor's degree. More than a decade later, she resumed her law education at the University of Washington School of Law, where she finished among the top of her class in 1956.

Judge Fletcher is married to Robert L. Fletcher, an expert in the law of community property and U.S. Constitutional law. Among her children are William A. Fletcher, also a judge on the Ninth Circuit, and Susan French, a professor of law at the University of California Los Angeles.

[edit] Professional Career

As a practicing lawyer, Fletcher earned a reputation for pragmatism and brilliance. She became the first woman to be made a partner in a major law firm in the Pacific Northwest, now known as Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates & Ellis. Fletcher's clients included former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, and she was instrumental in expanding the firm's presence in Asia. In addition to maintaining a successful legal practice, she was an active member of the bar, and served as chair of the King County Bar Association in Seattle, and was instrumental in lowering barriers to women and other minorities in the practice of law in Washington State.

Fletcher was nominated by President Carter on July 12, 1979, to a new seat on the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed by the Senate on September 26, 1979. On the bench, Fletcher has been responsible for authoring a large number of prominent opinions, and has been instrumental in setting the law in areas as diverse as employment discrimination, environmental regulation, Indian law, water rights, and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Fletcher took senior status as a United States Judge in 1998, in connection with the confirmation of her son, William A. Fletcher, to the Ninth Circuit.