She went on to Harvard College, from which she graduated magna cum laude in 1992,
and Harvard Law School, graduating cum laude in 1996.
She spent the year between college and law school as a reporter and researcher at Time magazine in New York.
In the 17 years following her graduation from law school, Jackson held a variety of legal jobs.
She attained three federal clerkships,
worked at four elite law firms,
and served two stints with the Sentencing Commission.
From 1996 to 1997, Jackson served as a clerk to U.S District Judge Patti Saris, a Massachusetts judge appointed by President Bill Clinton.
She followed that clerkship with a second one, for Judge Bruce Selya, appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit by President Ronald Reagan, from 1997 to 1998.
Jackson then snagged a highly sought-after spot as an associate at Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin, a Washington litigation boutique that later merged with Baker Botts, a Texas-based firm.
A promotion to the country’s “second-highest court”
The D.C. Circuit is often dubbed the “second-highest court in the land” because of the many high-profile cases that it hears and because it has served as a launching pad for several Supreme Court justices. Among the current justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh all served on the D.C. Circuit before being nominated to the Supreme Court, as did the late Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
her mid-career decision to spend two years as a public defender. In fact, the
last justice with significant experience representing criminal defendants was Justice Thurgood Marshall, who retired in 1991.
In 2005, Jackson became an assistant federal public defender in Washington, D.C. At her 2021 confirmation hearing, Jackson drew “a direct line” between her work as a public defender and her later work as a trial judge.
As a public defender, Jackson argued in the D.C. Circuit, including before some of the judges who would later become her colleagues.
Jackson left Miller Cassidy after a year for a third clerkship, this time at the Supreme Court as a clerk for Breyer.
When her clerkship ended, Jackson became an associate in the Boston office of a large law firm, Goodwin Procter.
Jackson left Goodwin Procter in 2002 to become an associate at the firm then known as the Feinberg Group, now known as Feinberg Rozen.
In 2007, Jackson returned to private practice one last time. She became “of counsel” – a designation for lawyers who are neither associates nor partners – in the Washington office of Morrison & Foerster, a large San Francisco-based law firm. For three years, Jackson was part of the firm’s appellate litigation group, working on cases in the Supreme Court and in state and federal appeals courts around the country.
n 2010, she returned to the Sentencing Commission after Obama nominated her to serve as vice chair of the commission.
The Senate confirmed her for the position by unanimous consent.
A federal district judgeship
In September 2012, Obama nominated Jackson to serve as a U.S. district judge in Washington, D.C. Although the Senate held hearings in December, it did not act on her nomination before the 112th Congress adjourned at the beginning of January. Obama nominated Jackson again on Jan. 4, 2013, and
the Senate confirmed her by a voice vote in March.
A promotion to the country’s “second-highest court”
Jackson was confirmed on June 14, 2021, by a vote of 53-44. Three Republicans – Susan Collins of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – joined all Democrats in voting for her.
Profile of a potential nominee: Ketanji Brown Jackson - SCOTUSblog