Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a nomination hearing for Veronica S. Rossman, who was nominated by President Biden for the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, in addition to Second Circuit nominee Eunice Lee and three district court nominees.
Rossman was born in 1972 in Moscow, and her family emigrated to the United States when she was a child. She graduated from Columbia University in 1993 and from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1997.
After graduating from law school, Rossman clerked for Chief Justice A. William Maupin of the Nevada Supreme Court. In 1998, she joined Morrison & Foerster as a litigation associate, where she remained until 2002, except for a brief hiatus with Boies, Schiller & Flexner in 2000. From 2002 to 2003, she worked in the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Districts of Colorado and Wyoming. She then returned to private practice with the firm of Mastbaum & Moffat from 2004 to 2005. She was employed as a staff attorney from 2007 to 2008 on the Ninth Circuit. Then for two years, she taught at the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law.
In 2010, Rossman returned to the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Districts of Colorado and Wyoming, where she remains today. In that office, she has held the positions of assistant federal public defender, supervisory assistant federal public defender, chief of appeals, and senior counsel, in which capacity she currently serves.
Rossman has edited and written a number of articles for The Rocky Mountain Defense Blog and has been a member of several organizations of legal professionals, including the American Bar Association. Upon her nomination, she became the fifth of President Biden’s six circuit court nominees who have previously worked as a public defender.