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The Distinguished Speaker for the Duke Law 2022 Convocation Ceremony is Judge J. Michelle Childs, a member of the Duke Law Master of Judicial Studies class of 2016.

Judge Childs is a judge on the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, serving in that role since 2010. In January, she was nominated by President Joe Biden to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and she was one of three judges the president considered this spring to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Judge Childs is a graduate of the University of South Florida, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Management, and she earned a JD and a master’s in Personnel and Employment Relations from the University of South Carolina. After graduation, she joined Nexsen Pruet as an associate, eventually rising to become the first Black woman partner at a major law firm in South Carolina.

In 2000, South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges appointed Judge Childs deputy director of the state Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation, and two years later, to the South Carolina Worker’s Compensation Commission. Her judicial career began in 2006, when the South Carolina legislature elected her to serve as an at-large circuit court judge. In late 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Judge Childs to the U.S. District Court; she received Senate confirmation by voice vote in August 2010.

Judge Childs is the president-elect of the Federal Judges Association and a member of the American Law Institute, and she sits on the Leadership Council of Duke Law School’s Bolch Judicial Institute. Last month, she received the Duke Law Alumni Association’s Charles S. Murphy Award for Achievement in Civic Service honoring her commitment to the common good through service to the community.