Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was born in in Washington, DC and grew up in Miami, Florida. She attended undergrad at Harvard where she graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Government. She went to law school at Harvard Law School where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and she graduated cum laude.
Justice Jackson began her legal career as a law clerk for the Honorable Patti B. Saris of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She then went on to clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals and worked in private practice before clerking for the Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the United States Supreme Court. After clerking for Justice Breyer, Justice Jackson went back into private practice for a couple of years. She then went into public service by first working at the United States Sentencing Commission for three years and then working as a Federal Public Defender for three years as well. After another stent in private practice, Justice Jackson came back to the United States Sentencing Commission as the Vice Chair.
In 2013, Justice Jackson was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia as a District Court Judge. She served in this role for seven years. In 2021, she was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit as a United States Circuit Judge. On February 25, 2022, President Biden nominated Justice Jackson to become the 116th Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
On April 7th, 2022, Justice Jackson was confirmed to the United States Supreme Court by a vote of 53 - 47. Justice Jackson is anticipated to be sworn in during the summer of 2022, after Justice Breyer retires from the court.