Haywood Stirling Gilliam, Jr.

Nomination Tracker
Nominee Information
	Name: Haywood Stirling Gilliam, Jr.
	Court: United States District Court for the Northern District of California
Progress
	Confirmed 120 days after nomination.
	Nominated: August 18, 2014
	ABA Rating: Substantial Majority Well Qualified, Minority Qualified
	Questionnaire: Questionnaire
	Hearing: September 17, 2014
	QFRs: QFRs (Hover over QFRs to read more)
	Reported: November 20, 2014
	Confirmed: December 16, 2014
	Vote: Voice vote

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Haywood Stirling Gilliam, Jr. is a federal judge for the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Prior to joining the court, he was a partner for the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP. President Barack Obama nominated Gilliam to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on August 18, 2014.^[1] The United States Senate confirmed Gilliam on December 16, 2014, on a voice vote.^[2]

Education

Gilliam earned his B.A., magna cum laude, from Yale University in 1991 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1994.^[1]

Professional career

2009-2014: Partner, Covington & Burling LLP

Vice chair, White Collar Defense and Investigations practice group

2006-2009: Partner, Bingham McCutchen LLP
1999-2006: Assistant United States attorney, Northern District of California

2005-2006: Chief, Securities Fraud Section

1995-1998: Attorney, McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen
1994-1995: Law clerk, Honorable Thelton Henderson, Northern District of California^[1]

Judicial career

Northern District of California

Haywood Gilliam received a nomination from President Barack Obama to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on August 18, 2014.^[1] The American Bar Association rated Gilliam Substantial Majority Well Qualified, Minority Qualified for the nomination; one member recused themselves from the vote.^[3]

Gilliam had a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 17, 2014.^[4] The committee reported Gilliam to the full Senate on November 20, 2014, by voice vote.^[5] Gilliam was confirmed by the Senate on December 16, 2014, by a voice vote.^[2]

Awards and associations

The awards and associations are as they appeared on Gilliam's questionnaire to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Awards

2013-2014: Criminal Defense: White Collar, Best Lawyers in America
2013-2014: Future Star, Benchmark Litigation
2008-2013: Northern California Super Lawyers
1998: San Francisco NAACP 1998 Thomas I. Atkins Civil Rights Award
1994: United States Law Week award for outstanding service and unfailing commitment to the Stanford Law Review
1993-1994: Article editor, Stanford Law Review
1992-1994: Member, Stanford Law Review
1992: Hilmer Oehlmann Jr. Prize for outstanding work in first-year Legal Research and Writing, Stanford Law School
1991: Thatcher Memorial Prize for encouragement of extemporaneous debate among undergraduates, Yale University
1991: Master's Cup for service to Timothy Dwight College, Yale University

Associations

2013-Present: Governance committee member, Vincent Academy
2012-Present: Advisory board member, East Bay Community Law Center
2011-Present: Vice-moderator, Plymouth United Church of Christ
2011-Present: Sequoyah Country Club

2013-Present: Membership Development Committee

1999-Present: Board member, Wiley Manuel Law Foundation

2009-2012: President

2010-2012: Member, Stanford Law School Board of Visitors
2009-2012: Board member, Bar Association of San Francisco^[6]

Noteworthy cases

U.S. Supreme Court allows financing for border wall construction (2019)

The United States Supreme Court on July 26 held that the Pentagon can use military funds to build a wall along the southern border of the United States. The court ruled that groups objecting to the use of money for border wall projects, including the Sierra Club, had not shown that they have the right to challenge the government’s actions in court.^[7]

The court’s decision temporarily blocked an injunction issued by Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The injunction remains blocked until either the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit resolves the dispute, Trump v. Sierra Club, or the case comes before the United States Supreme Court.^[7]^[8]

The court’s five Republican-appointed justices voted to grant the temporary stay on the injunction. The four Democrat-appointed justices dissented.^[7]

The Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC) sued President Trump and members of his administration in February 2019. They argued that Trump administration officials should not be allowed to construct a barrier on the border using funds appropriated by Congress for the United States Department of Defense (DoD).^[8]

Judge Gilliam issued an injunction in May 2019 that blocked the Trump administration from diverting DoD funds to build sections of the border wall. Gilliam ruled that the Sierra Club and SBCC did not need a special right of action to ask for a court order to block executive actions they believed were beyond the executive branch’s legal authority. He held that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) framework of judicial review did not apply in this case.^[8]

Judge blocks Trump administration contraception rules (2019)

On January 13, 2019, Federal Judge Haywood Gilliam blocked Trump administration contraception rules from going into effect in Washington, D.C., and 13 states. The plaintiff states challenged two final rules announced by the Departments of Health and Human Services, Treasury, and Labor in November 2018. According to the agencies, those rules provided flexibility to employers with moral or religious objections to health insurance plans that cover contraception and sterilization. Under the new rules, those employers would be able to offer alternative health insurance plans without such coverage.^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12]

The agencies issued the rules following a process called notice-and-comment rulemaking. That process allows agencies to amend, repeal, or create administrative regulations after considering public feedback on proposed rules.

Judge Gilliam agreed to issue an injunction against the new rules because he found that the suing states’ finances would suffer as a result of the new rules. First, the states claimed the rules would lead women to lose employer-sponsored contraceptive coverage and turn to the state for reimbursement after purchasing contraceptives. Next, the states argued that the rate of unintended pregnancies would rise following the implementation of the new rules. They claimed that the rise in unintended pregnancies would lead to higher expenses because states pay for child delivery and newborn care for mothers who have low incomes.^[10]

Judge Gilliam held that the states showed that the rules posed a reasonably probable threat to their economic interests because they would have to pay for contraceptives that had been guaranteed cost-free by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Gilliam held that granting an injunction against the rules was the only way to redress the potential harm to the states while their lawsuit makes its way through the court system. He limited the injunction to the plaintiff states and Washington, D.C., because the case involves difficult questions of law that might benefit from multiple decisions in various courts of appeals.^[10]

Judge Gilliam also defended his decision to issue a preliminary injunction against the contraception rules using the arbitrary-or-capricious test. That test comes from the part of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), that instructs courts reviewing agency actions to invalidate any that they find to be arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law. The plaintiff states argued that the new rules are not in accordance with the ACA, which is one of the relevant laws that determine what rules agencies may pass regarding contraception.^[10]