Goodwin Liu, 39, is a liberal legal scholar who, if confirmed, could become a force on the federal appeals court for decades.
The Rhodes Scholar, a former U.S. Supreme Court clerk and current associated dean and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, could be the first person of Asian descent chosen for the Supreme Court.
Born in Augusta, Ga., and the son of Taiwanese immigrants, Liu grew up in Sacramento, where he attended public schools. He went to Stanford University and earned a bachelor’s degree in biology. He attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship and earned a master’s degree in philosophy and physiology. Liu graduated from Yale Law School, becoming the first in his family to earn a law degree.
Before joining the Berkeley Law faculty in 2003, Liu was an appellate litigator at O’Melveny & Myers in Washington. ♦