Chief Judge Emily C. Hewitt

Chief Judge Emily C. Hewitt
United States Court of Federal Claims
717 Madison Place, N.W.
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 357-6564

Chief Judge Hewitt was commissioned as a Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims by President William J. Clinton on October 22, 1998. President Barack Obama designated her to serve as Chief Judge on March 11, 2009. In 2006, she was appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States to serve on the Financial Disclosure Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Chief Judge Hewitt is a member of the Bar of the Supreme Judicial Court of The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She graduated from Harvard Law School, with honors, in 1978.

Chief Judge Hewitt served as General Counsel of the United States General Services Administration (GSA) from 1993 to 1998. As GSA's General Counsel, she oversaw the legal activities and responsibilities of the agency, served as GSA's chief ethics official, as chief legal advisor to the Administrator and other GSA officials, and as a member of GSA's management committee. While at GSA, Chief Judge Hewitt served as a government member of the Administrative Conference of the United States and as a member of the President's Interagency Council on Women. She also served as a continuing education lecturer on procurement law reform, procurement integrity, alternative dispute resolution, and government law office management.

Before entering government service in 1993, Chief Judge Hewitt practiced from 1978 to 1993 with the Boston law firm Hill & Barlow. She was elected a partner in 1985, and served as chair of Hill & Barlow's real estate department from 1987 to 1993. While with Hill & Barlow, Chief Judge Hewitt served on charitable, civic, and professional boards and committees and as a continuing education lecturer on real estate law.

Chief Judge Hewitt is a graduate of the Roland Park Country School in Baltimore and Cornell University (A.B. 1966). After college, Chief Judge Hewitt studied at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where she received the M. Phil. degree in studies focusing on religion and education. She was ordained to the diaconate of the Episcopal Church in 1972. A leader of the effort to open Episcopal ordination to women, Chief Judge Hewitt was one of the first eleven women ordained to the Episcopal priesthood on July 29, 1974. Chief Judge Hewitt served from 1973-1975 as assistant professor of religion and education at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. She has also served as lecturer at the Union Theological Seminary and, from 1967 to 1969, as administrator of the Cornell/Hofstra Upward Bound Program at the Union Settlement House in East Harlem. Chief Judge Hewitt holds the D. Min. degree from the Chicago Theological Seminary in studies focusing on liberty of conscience. In addition to hundreds of legal opinions, Chief Judge Hewitt is the author or co-author of more than two dozen publications on legal and religious topics.

Chief Judge Hewitt is an accomplished long distance race walker. She won a U.S. national race walking medal in 1987 and has won many national masters medals. She has walked more than a dozen marathons including the Boston, New York and United States Marine Corps Marathons. She is also an avid hiker of the National Park trails of the American West. Chief Judge Hewitt is married to Eleanor Dean Acheson. Ms. Acheson practiced law with the firm Ropes & Gray from 1974-93 and served in the U.S. Department of Justice as Assistant Attorney General for Policy Development from 1993-2001. She has also served as Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and, since 2007, as Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary of the National Passenger Rail Corporation (AMTRAK).

http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/node/24