Nicole Berner

Nicole G. Berner is a labor and employment, civil rights, and reproductive rights attorney. Berner is currently General Counsel of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and a partner at the law firm James & Hoffman. In November 2023, she was nominated to serve as a United States Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Early life and education

Berner was born on April 3, 1965, in Woking, United Kingdom, and attended Skyline High School in Oakland, California. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Women’s Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She then concurrently completed a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley and a Juris Doctor from the UC Berkeley School of Law in 1996, earning Order of the Coif. During this time, she served as an articles editor for the Berkeley Women’s Law Journal.

Career

Berner served as a law clerk for Chief Judge Thelton E. Henderson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and for Judge Betty Binns Fletcher of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She then worked as a litigation associate at Jenner & Block where she participated in trial and appellate court civil litigation. While at Jenner & Block, she served as part of the appellate team that won the landmark victory in Lawrence v. Texas before the U.S. Supreme Court. She also did pro bono work representing children in abuse and neglect proceedings in D.C. Superior Court.

From 2004 to 2006, Berner served as a staff attorney at Planned Parenthood Association of America, where she worked to protect and expand women’s access to reproductive health care, especially for low-income patients in rural communities.

Berner joined SEIU’s legal department in 2006 and was named General Counsel of the organization in 2017. She is widely respected for her leadership at SEIU where she represents the union in dozens of cases across the country on behalf of low-wage service and care workers. She represented SEIU and its affiliates in a range of cases in state and federal courts advocating for the rights of working Americans across the country who otherwise may not have access to legal representation. This included supporting the Affordable Care Act, leading legal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act – which the U.S. Supreme Court eventually struck down – and demonstrating the ways in which marriage discrimination impacts working people, successfully challenging laws that restricted the right to vote, and bringing cases on behalf of union workers illegally targeted or discriminated against by their employers. In 2023, Berner was also named an Adjunct Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School.

Berner is currently barred in California, the District of Columbia, and Maryland, and is admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as several U.S. Court of Appeals Circuit Courts and U.S. District Courts.

Court of appeals nomination

On November 15, 2023, President Biden announced his intent to nominate Berner to serve as United States Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit. If confirmed, she would be the first openly LGBTQ judge to serve on that court. Biden nominated Berner to the seat vacated by Judge Diana Gribbon Motz in September 2022.

Affiliations

Berner is a member of the American Bar Association, Section of Labor and Employment Law; American Law Institute; and the National Employment Lawyers Association. Berner holds fellowships with the American Law Institute, the American Bar Foundation, and the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers.

Personal life

Berner is a longtime resident of Montgomery County, residing in Takoma Park, Maryland, where she raised her three sons.

In 2000, as a dual American-Israeli citizen, Berner prevailed in a landmark civil rights case before the Israeli Supreme Court. The case, Berner-Kadish v. Minister of Interior, challenged the Israeli Minister of Interior’s refusal to register Berner’s second parent adoption of her son. The Israel Supreme Court ruled that the Minister of Interior must register the adoption decree, accepting legally that the child has two mothers.