Judge Adrienne Noti Takes Oath as Newest D.C. Superior Court Judge
April 01, 2024
On March 25, Judge Adrienne Jennings Noti was sworn in as associate judge of D.C. Superior Court, which she previously served as magistrate judge for almost 10 years.
Taking oath before Chief Judge Anita Josey-Herring, Noti said she was “overwhelmed in a positive way” and looks forward to new challenges and opportunities.
“I’m committed to making sure that everyone who comes through these [court] doors feels respected and has an opportunity to be heard,” said Noti, a native Washingtonian. “I’ll be fair and impartial while making very important decisions that affect many people’s daily lives.”
Before joining the bench in 2014, Noti was an advisor at the Office of Child Support Enforcement of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and then managing attorney of the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center, where she coordinated its Advocacy & Justice Clinic.
Noti began her legal career as a clerk for Judge Carol Bagley Amon of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York following graduation from Georgetown University Law Center in 2000. She worked as a staff attorney with New York City’s Safe Horizon Domestic Violence Law Project and was a clinical law professor at Rutgers Law School, leading its Women’s Rights Litigation Clinic and Domestic Violence Advocacy Project, and at American University Washington College of Law, where she was a practitioner-in-residence at its Women and the Law Clinic.
Noti was nominated by President Biden to serve as associate judge in September 2021, but she wasn’t confirmed by the U.S. Senate until early March 2024. “It was a miracle to get Judge Noti,” said Josey-Herring. “She’s been waiting for an extremely long time to be confirmed by the Senate.
The D.C. Courts are still grappling with a shortage of judges, with 13 Superior Court vacancies as of April and with existing judges handling triple their normal caseloads. Meanwhile, six nominees are still awaiting confirmation by the Senate.
“[Our] judges want to do justice in every case,” said Josey-Herring, who announced in March that she is not seeking a second term. “They don’t want to do assembly-line justice. They want to make sure that they are focusing on the people involved in the cases and the issues sharply. In order to do that, they need to be fresh and have reasonable caseloads.”
“We hope that the Senate understands the need to confirm those [nominees],” Josey-Herring added. “I will be leaving in October. And so, then we would be down an additional judge. As people start to retire, it is going to be important to make sure that the court is fully staffed.”
