Source: OTHERWISE: Ilana Diamond Rovner, 1st woman on 7th Circuit Appeals Court takes senior status
Judge Rovner’s modesty and humility is striking. In her letter to President Biden she leads not with a list of her accomplishments, but with her report that “(m)y mother and I came to the United States from Latvia in 1939, to join my father who had left a year earlier, as refugees from the Nazis, escaping the unspeakable fate that our family and friends in Europe. This great nation took us from certain death and gave us every possible opportunity to make a new life for ourselves.”
“Our experience”, she writes, “gave me a deep respect for the rule of law and a personal understanding of the horrors that can ensue when it is abandoned. I was never more proud than on the days that I was sworn in as an American citizen and, years later, with my parents of beloved memory looking on, as a United States District Judge, and then a United States Circuit Court Judge…In the service of justice, I have endeavored always to be mindful of the ways in which the legal system can overlook, exclude, and give unequal treatment to those without resources, status, or societal acceptance.”
Professional Responsibility: A Contemporary Approach 