Headline: Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown’s milestone year

Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown’s election as president of the New Orleans chapter of the Federal Bar Association added another Tulanian woman to the roster of those leading major legal organizations in 2020.

Brown (L’88) was sworn in as president in August of 2019, and will serve a one-year term.

She joined alumnae Judy Perry Martinez (L’82) and Judge Bernadette D’Souza (L’92) who are leading the American Bar Association and the National Association of Women Judges, respectively, in the 2019-20 cycle. 

Brown received a number of other recognitions in recent months.  Among them was the Ernest Morial Award given by the Louis A. Martinet Society for her role as an African-American woman blazing trails in the judicial ranks.

Brown’s legacy in the state’s legal circles is just that – trailblazing. New Orleans’ first African American City Attorney, she became the first black woman to be nominated to serve on Louisiana’s federal bench in 2012 and then was named Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in 2018.

Prior to her appointment to the United States District Court and her work with the City of New Orleans, she was a partner with the firm of Chaffe McCall, LLP where she practiced commercial and environmental litigation, as well as real estate law and other transactional matters.

In addition to practicing law, Brown has been an educator and mentor, teaching through Tulane’s Environmental Law Clinic and the Southern University Law Center, and the Loyola College of Law Clinic and Center for Social Justice.

Brown earned a B.A. in English from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1985. She is a two-time Tulane Law graduate, earning her J.D in 1988 and an LLM in 1998.