The Honorable Todd E. Edelman

Todd E. Edelman was nominated by President Barack Obama to be an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in 2010. His nomination was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 22, 2010. He currently serves in the Criminal Division and presides over a Felony 1 Calendar.

Judge Edelman was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He received his B.A., cum laude and with Distinction in Political Science, from Yale College in 1990. He was awarded his law degree, cum laude, by the New York University (NYU) School of Law in 1994. At NYU, Judge Edelman was selected as a Root-Tilden Scholar for his academic achievement and commitment to public service. After his graduation from law school, Judge Edelman moved to Washington to serve as a law clerk for The Honorable William B. Bryant on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Immediately after his clerkship, he was awarded an E. Barrett Fellowship at the Georgetown University Law Center and spent two years as a Prettyman Fellow in Georgetown’s Criminal Justice Clinic.

From 1997 to 2005, Judge Edelman was a trial attorney at the Public Defender Service (PDS) for the District of Columbia. At PDS, Judge Edelman tried dozens of cases to judges and juries and began serving as lead counsel in cases on the Superior Court’s Felony 1 calendars in 2000. He was promoted to Chief of the PDS Serious Felony Section in 2002 and became the agency’s Training Director in 2004; in the latter position, he designed and conducted an intensive trial skills training program for new staff attorneys and directed professional education training programs for all staff attorneys.

In 2005, Judge Edelman became Of Counsel at the firm of Bredhoff & Kaiser, P.L.L.C. In private practice, he focused his work on complex civil litigation in federal and state courts nationwide. He also practiced before arbitrators and administrative tribunals and represented individuals in criminal prosecutions and investigations in a number of jurisdictions.

Judge Edelman taught Criminal Trial Practice as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown Law from 2004 to 2008 and taught full time at Georgetown as a clinical professor from 2008 to 2010. As a clinical professor, he taught classes on criminal law and procedure, evidence, and trial practice in the Criminal Justice Clinic, and supervised students and post-graduate Fellows on criminal cases in Superior Court. Judge Edelman currently teaches Torts and Constitutional Law at Georgetown as an Adjunct Professor of Law, and in 2022 was awarded the Charles Fahy Distinguished Adjunct Professor Award. He has also been a member of the faculty of the Harvard Law School Trial Advocacy Workshop since 2006, and frequently volunteers his time as a trainer and lecturer at programs sponsored by various law schools, bar associations, and legal services providers.

Before his appointment to the bench, Judge Edelman served on the Board of Directors of the Washington Council of Lawyers and was twice elected by his peers to the Steering Committee of the D.C. Bar’s Criminal Law and Individual Rights Section. Harvard Law School recognized Judge Edelman’s public service achievements by awarding him a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellowship.

Judge Edelman has previously served in the Criminal Division, Civil Division, and Domestic Violence Division. He served as the Presiding Judge of the Civil Division in 2023-24 and as the Deputy Presiding Judge in 2021-22. Judge Edelman is a member of the District of Columbia Sentencing Commission, and serves on the Superior Court’s Jury Instructions Committee, Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, Committee on Criminal Justice Act Panel Attorneys, and as Chair of the Committee on Criminal Justice Act Vouchers.