Whitney Hermandorfer
Whitney Downs Hermandorfer is an American lawyer who is serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She previously was the director of the Strategic Litigation Unit in the Tennessee Attorney General's office from 2023 to 2025.
Early life and education
Hermandorfer was born Whitney Dianne Downs in 1987 in Clearwater, Florida. She graduated from Princeton University with an Artium Baccalaureus degree, with a minor in sociology magna cum laude in 2009. She received her Juris Doctor from George Washington University Law School in 2015 and was editor-in-chief of The George Washington Law Review. In law school, she was a recipient of the John Bell Larner Award for having the highest cumulative grade point average.Career
In 2015, Hermandorfer joined the law firm of Williams and Connolly in Washington D.C. as an associate, where she focused on appellate and administrative law. Hermandorfer served as a law clerk for then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh from 2016 to 2017 while he served on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, as well as for Judge Richard Leon on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia from 2017 to 2018. She later clerked for Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett on the United States Supreme Court. She returned to Williams and Connolly in 2021 and then in 2023 joined the Tennessee Attorney General's office as director of the newly formed Strategic Litigation Unit under attorney general Jonathan Skrmetti.Hermandorfer is a member of the Federalist Society.