Judge aleta trauger biography

Aleta Trauger

United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee

Tenure

Years in position

Personal


Aleta Arthur Trauger is a federal judge on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. She joined the court in 1998 after being nominated by President Bill Clinton (D).

Early life and education

A native of Denver, Colorado, Trauger received an undergraduate degree from Cornell College in 1968, a master's degree from Vanderbilt University in 1972, and a J.D. from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1976.[1]

Professional career

Judicial career

Federal judicial nominations

Middle District of Tennessee

President Bill Clinton nominated Trauger to serve on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee September 22, 1998, to a seat vacated by John Nixon. The American Bar Association rated Trauger Unanimously Well Qualified for the nomination. The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on Trauger's nomination October 1. U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) reported her nomination October

Judge Aleta Trauger: Distinguished Service Award Winner

Long before Judge Aleta Trauger ’76 (MAT’72) became the first female U.S. district judge for the Middle District of Tennessee in 1998, she began her professional life as a teacher. Within three years, she realized teaching was not her calling. A friend suggested law school.

Trauger entered Vanderbilt Law in 1973, just as the number of women in law schools was beginning to increase. There were 32 women in her first-year class, compared to only three in the Class of 1971 five years earlier. She quickly proved she was prepared to be a pioneering woman lawyer by helping to engineer the now legendary “potty parity” revolt, which involved the hasty conversion of one of the law school’s men’s restrooms for use by female students, who previously had been forced to share the single women’s facility in the building with female staff.

After her 1L year, Trauger became a law clerk at Barrett Brandt & Barrett, where she was mentored by Vanderbilt alumni George Barrett ’57, Lionel Barrett ’66 (BA’63), Robert Brandt ’66 and the

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