Appointed by President Bill Clinton, Judge David S. Tatel served on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1994 to 2024, succeeding future Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

After graduating from the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago Law School, he served as the founding director of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and then director of the National Lawyers’ Committee. He headed the Office for Civil Rights of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare during the Carter administration and then founded and led the education practice at Hogan Lovells, where he is now Senior Counsel. Judge Tatel is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the past, he co-chaired the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Science, Technology, and Law, and chaired the boards of The Spencer Foundation and The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

In his memoir, Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice, Judge Tatel reflects on his remarkable personal journey from denial to acceptance of the blindness that followed him throughout his career as well as the art of judging and his concerns about the Supreme Court. Named a New York Times Editor’s Pick and called a “moving, thoughtful, and inspiring memoir” (Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy), Vision recounts how Tatel relied on aides and technology to work around his deteriorating vision and, for years, denied 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.

Judge Tatel speaks to law firms, colleges and universities, law schools, corporations, and disability groups around the country about his inspiring personal journey fighting for justice and overcoming the stigma of disability.