January 12, 2021
Via Email and U.S. Mail
dc.jnc@dc.gov
Tracy Brinkley Nutall, Executive Director
D.C. Judicial Nomination Commission
515 5th Street NW, Suite 235
Washington, D.C. 20001
Re: Support for The Honorable Adrienne J. Noti for the Position of Associate Judge, Superior Court for the District of Columbia
Dear Honorable Members of the Judicial Nomination Commission:
Washington Council of Lawyers is pleased to express its support for The Honorable Adrienne J. Noti for the position of Associate Judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Washington Council of Lawyers previously expressed its support for Magistrate Judge Noti in 2017 for the position of Associate Judge, and Washington Council of Lawyers wholeheartedly endorses Magistrate Judge Noti for this position again. Magistrate Judge Noti has, throughout her career, committed herself to ensuring full and fair access to justice and equal treatment for all in our court system.
Washington Council of Lawyers is the public-interest bar association for the District of Columbia. Our membership includes lawyers from all sectors of the legal community, legal professionals, law students, and others committed to advancing access to justice issues in our community. Washington Council of Lawyers supports strong judicial candidates who have shown a firm commitment to promoting equal access to justice and serving marginalized populations. Magistrate Judge Noti has demonstrated that commitment throughout her career.
As previously expressed in our 2017 endorsement, Magistrate Judge Noti has focused her legal career on directing pro bono programs and providing public interest legal services. Following a federal clerkship and legal fellowship, she worked as a Staff Attorney at the Safe Horizon Domestic Violence Law Project, representing low-income domestic violence victims in protection order, child custody, visitation, and neglect proceedings, primarily in Manhattan Family Court. She also led a bench-bar working group in Manhattan Family Court to address issues faced by domestic violence victims in court and worked with the judiciary to develop innovative, integrated domestic violence courts (i.e., courts hearing both civil and criminal matters).
Magistrate Judge Noti became a clinical law professor in 2004. At Rutgers School of Law – Newark, she led the Women’s Rights Litigation Clinic where she supervised student attorneys representing victims of domestic violence in contested restraining order hearings in New Jersey. She also was the Director of the Domestic Violence Advocacy Project at Rutgers School of Law – Newark overseeing a program that
provided legal information to pro se litigants.
From June 2006 to June 2010, Magistrate Judge Noti was a Practitioner-in-Residence in the Women and the Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law, where she supervised student attorneys representing clients in child custody, child support, divorce,
domestic violence, disability, and immigration matters.
Magistrate Judge Noti then became the Managing Attorney for family law with the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program (now the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center). There, she coordinated the Advocacy and Justice Clinic, placing low-income clients with pro bono lawyers in housing, disability, and family law matters in D.C. Superior Court. She also served as primary staff for the D.C. Bar Family Law Task Force, with responsibilities that included obtaining input from family court advocates, judicial officers, and litigants.
In 2011, as Special Advisor to the Director at the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), Magistrate Judge Noti developed federal child support policy and created and implemented federal child support strategies and innovations to improve the child support process, especially
for pro se participants. She conducted trainings for state judges and attorneys and developed training materials for use by child support professionals nationwide. She also advised senior policymakers regarding all aspects of child support enforcement and helped to implement
federal policies on the appropriate use of civil contempt to enforce child support orders.
Since being appointed as Magistrate Judge for the Superior Court in 2014, Magistrate Judge Noti has continued her incomparable service to the District of Columbia by fairly and impartially presiding over matters in the Family Court Division, where she also presides over the Family Treatment Center, a drug treatment court for substance-abusing parents involved in the child abuse and neglect system. Magistrate Judge Noti has also presided over matters in the Civil Division, the Probate Division, and the Criminal Division, where, as team lead, she managed a high-volume docket of criminal matters from arraignments through trial and probation.
Magistrate Judge Noti’s highly accomplished professional credentials and connections to the community clearly demonstrate her exceptional qualifications to serve as an Associate Judge in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Her life-long commitment to pro bono service and community outreach reflect her passion for public service and the citizens of the District of Columbia will be well served by her appointment as an Associate Judge in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
Magistrate Judge Noti has advanced the goal of equal access to justice throughout her career, and Washington Council of Lawyers is pleased to recommend her to you.
Respectfully submitted,
Mark L. Kovner
President, Washington Council of Lawyers