The Honorable Judith Bartnoff

Judge Judith Bartnoff was appointed to the District of Columbia Superior Court in 1994 by President William Jefferson Clinton. She currently is assigned to the 7D Community Court calendar in the Criminal Division. In 2017 and 2018, she presided over a Felony 1 calendar. Prior to her recent assignments to the Criminal Division, she served as Presiding Judge of the Civil Division, and she was a member of the Chief Judge’s leadership team from 2011-2016. As Presiding Judge of the Civil Division, and in her prior role as Deputy Presiding Judge, she was instrumental in creating an innovative mortgage foreclosure calendar that provided for early mediation, as well as in implementing significant improvements to Landlord and Tenant Court. She has served in the Civil, Criminal and Family Divisions of the Court and as Presiding Judge of the Domestic Violence Unit.

Judge Bartnoff received a B.A. magna cum laude in History and Literature from Radcliffe College of Harvard University. She received a J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she served as an editor of the Law Review, was named a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and received the Adolph A. Berle Faculty Assistantship. She also has an LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was a fellow at the Institute for Public Interest Representation.

Before being appointed to the Superior Court, Judge Bartnoff was a partner at Patton Boggs. She also was an Associate Independent Counsel in the Clinton passport investigation. Before entering private practice, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Civil Division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, and she was awarded a Special Achievement Award and the Director’s Award for Superior Performance, as well as commendations from over twenty federal agencies. Before joining the United States Attorney’s Office, she served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division and then as an Associate Deputy Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice. Before joining the Justice Department, she was a staff attorney at the Council for Public Interest Law.

Judge Bartnoff served as a member of the District of Columbia Child Support Guideline Commission from 2002-2017 and played a key role in the revision of the D.C. Child Support Guideline. In 2016, she received the President’s Award from the Benjamin Banneker Development Corporation for her leadership in creating the early mediation calendar for mortgage foreclosure cases. In 2004, she was recognized for her contributions to the Family Court by the Family Law Section of the D.C. Bar.

Judge Bartnoff has served on a number of court committees, including the Rules Committee and the Mental Health Rules Advisory Committee, and she has chaired the Advisory Committees on the Civil Rules and the Landlord and Tenant Rules.