Paul L. Friedman

Friedman was born in Buffalo, New York. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell University in 1965, where he was president of the Quill and Dagger society and a member of Zeta Beta Tau. He received a J.D. from University at Buffalo Law School, in 1968.

Friedman began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge Aubrey Eugene Robinson Jr. of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia from 1968 to 1969, and then for Judge Roger Robb of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1969 to 1970. He was an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1970 to 1974. He was an Assistant United States Solicitor General from 1974 to 1976.[2] He was in private practice of law at the firm of White & Case in Washington, D.C. from 1976 to 1994.

In June 1984, Friedman was elected to the American Law Institute and was elected to the ALI Council in October 1998. He began his first three-year term as ALI Secretary in 2013.

Friedman was nominated by President Bill Clinton on March 22, 1994, to a seat vacated by Gerhard A. Gesell. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 15, 1994, and received his commission on June 16, 1994. He assumed senior status on December 31, 2009.

Among Friedman's notable cases is the continuing supervision of John Hinckley Jr., the would-be assassin of President Ronald Reagan. Friedman has issued rulings that relaxed the restrictions on Hinckley by allowing him to leave the grounds of St. Elizabeths Hospital to spend more days each month visiting his mother's home town of Williamsburg, Virginia.[3] On July 27, 2016, it was announced that Hinckley would be allowed to permanently reside there.

Friedman also presides over In re: Rail Freight Fuel Surcharge Antitrust Litigation, an ongoing MDL (multidistrict litigation) that saw multiple appeals to the D.C. Circuit in a battle for class certification that lasted over a decade.[4][5]

Delivering the annual Judge Thomas A. Flannery Lecture on November 6, 2019, Friedman entered the political fray by deploring President Donald Trump's rhetorical attacks on judges, saying they “violate all recognized democratic norms" and are starting to "undermine faith in the rule of law itself."[6]

“We are witnessing a chief executive who criticizes virtually every judicial decision that doesn’t go his way and denigrates judges who rule against him, sometimes in very personal terms. He seems to view the courts and the justice system as obstacles to be attacked and undermined, not as a coequal branch to be respected even when he disagrees with its decisions.”[7]

• Paul L. Friedman at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.