Beryl A. Howell

Judge Beryl A. Howell has served on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia since 2011, including as Chief Judge from 2016 until March 2023. She took senior status in February 2024.

Judge Howell has worked in private practice, the legal academy and in all three branches of the federal government. After a clerkship for a federal judge in the District of New Jersey, she was a litigation associate at a New York City law firm, and then an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Chief of the Narcotics Section in the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York. She subsequently served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, where she worked for Senator Patrick J. Leahy, (D-VT), and did substantial work promoting the Freedom of Information Act, including work on the Electronic FOIA Amendments of 1996.

Following her 10-year tenure on the Hill, she served two terms as a Commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, after being appointed by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, while also working as executive managing director and general counsel of a cybersecurity and digital forensics consulting firm. After her judicial appointment by President Barack Obama to the District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Howell served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States and the Judicial Conference Committees on Information Technology and on Criminal Law.

She received her B.A., with Honors in Philosophy, from Bryn Mawr College and her J.D from Columbia University School of Law, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Among her other awards, Judge Howell was inducted into the National Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame in 2001 and is the recipient of the 2004 First Amendment Award by the Society of Professional Journalists in recognition of “the important work she has done on behalf of all journalists and those who understand the significance of the government watchdog role the media must practice each day.”

                (Updated April 2025)