President Donald Trump Nominates GW Law Alumna Whitney Hermandorfer to 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

May 5, 2025
Whitney Hermandorfer

President Donald Trump nominated GW Law alumna Whitney Hermandorfer to fill a seat on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati last week.

Hermandorfer, JD ‘15, is among the growing number of GW Law alumni who have clerked for a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. In 2018, she clerked for Justice Samuel Alito and, in 2020, she clerked for Justice Amy Coney Barrett. She also clerked for Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he was a judge on the D.C. Circuit and Judge Richard Leon in the U.S. District Court for D.C.

Most recently, Hermandorfer served as the Director of the Strategic Litigation Unit in the Office of the Tennessee Attorney General. In that role, she focused on leading constitutional, statutory, and administrative-law challenges to federal agency action and helped defend the State of Tennessee in complex matters on the trial and appellate level. 

Hermandorfer is President Trump’s first judicial nomination of his second term.