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About the Book

David Tatel served near­ly 30 years on America’s sec­ond high­est court, the Unit­ed States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Cir­cuit, where many of our most cru­cial cas­es are resolved — or teed up for the Supreme Court. He has cham­pi­oned equal jus­tice for his entire adult life; decid­ed land­mark envi­ron­men­tal and vot­ing cas­es; and embod­ied the ide­al of what a great judge should be. Yet he has been blind for 50 of his 80-plus years.

Ini­tial­ly, he depend­ed upon aides to read texts to him, and more recent­ly, a suite of hi-tech solu­tions has allowed him to lis­ten to reams of doc­u­ments at high speeds. At first, he tried to hide his dete­ri­o­rat­ing vision, and for years, he denied that it had any impact on his career. Only recent­ly, part­ly thanks to his first-ever guide dog, Vix­en, has he come to ful­ly accept his blind­ness and the role it’s played in his per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al lives. His sto­ry of fight­ing for jus­tice over decades, with and with­out eye­sight, is an inspi­ra­tion to us all.

About the Author

Judge David Tatel served on the Unit­ed States Court of Appeals for the Dis­trict of Colum­bia Cir­cuit from 1994 to 2023. His pre­vi­ous three-decade career as a civ­il rights lawyer includ­ed pri­vate and gov­ern­ment posi­tions, focus­ing heav­i­ly on equal edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ty and access to jus­tice. Judge Tatel and his wife, Edie, have four chil­dren and eight grand­chil­dren. They live in Vir­ginia and Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

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This lecture is presented as this year’s Leslie Maitland Amram Lecture