Pryor becomes chief judge of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals
United States Circuit Judge William H. Pryor, Jr., assumed the duties of chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit and as chair of the 11th Circuit Judicial Council.
Chief Judge Pryor is now the highest-ranking judicial officer in the 11th Circuit and fills one of the circuit’s two positions on the Judicial Conference of the United States, the principal policy making organization for the U.S. courts. Pryor, who is stationed in Birmingham, Alabama, succeeds Judge Ed Carnes of Montgomery, Alabama, who served as chief judge from August 1, 2013, to June 2, 2020.
The court has appellate jurisdiction over federal cases originating in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, and received about 5,500 appeals last year.
In 2004, President George W. Bush appointed Judge Pryor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Before that appointment, Judge Pryor served for seven years as the attorney general for the State of Alabama. He received his law degree magna cum laude from Tulane University Law School where he served as editor in chief of the Tulane Law Review. Following his graduation from Tulane, he served as a law clerk for Judge John Minor Wisdom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.
In addition to his regular judicial duties, Judge Pryor has served as a commissioner of the U.S Sentencing Commission from 2013 to 2018 and as acting chair of the commission in 2017–18, and as a member of both the Committee on Budget and the Committee on Judicial Resources for the Judicial Conference of the United States. He has also taught law as a visiting professor at the University of Alabama School of Law and as an adjunct professor at Samford University, Cumberland School of Law.
