2016-2017 Supreme Court Fellows

CARYN DEVINS is the 2016-2017 Fellow assigned to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, the central support entity for the Judicial Branch. Ms. Devins joins the Supreme Court Fellows Program from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where she clerked for the Honorable Peter W. Hall. Ms. Devins earned a B.A., with highest distinction, in Political Science and Spanish from the University of Vermont, and a J.D., magna cum laude, Order of the Coif, from the Duke University School of Law, where she was an Editorial Board Member for the Duke Law Journal. Prior to her clerkship with Judge Hall, Ms. Devins clerked for the Honorable James P. Jones of the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia and for Chief Justice Paul Reiber of the Vermont Supreme Court. While in law school, Ms. Devins served as a summer law clerk for the Federal Defender for the District of Vermont and interned for the Honorable William K. Sessions of the United States District Court for the District of Vermont. She is admitted to practice in Vermont.

CHERYL A. KEARNEY is the 2016-2017 Fellow assigned to the Supreme Court of the United States, where she will serve in the Office of the Counselor to the Chief Justice. Col. Kearney joins the Supreme Court Fellows Program from the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado, from which she will be on sabbatical from her appointment as Professor and Head of the Political Science Department and Dean of Faculty. In those roles, she leads a 32-member military and civilian faculty in teaching American government, international relations, comparative politics, and national security to future Air Force officers. Col. Kearney earned a B.A., with honors, in Legal Studies and Administration of Justice from the University of Pittsburgh. She subsequently earned a M.A. in National Security Affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School, a M.S. in National Security Strategy from the National War College, and a Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown University. As an officer of the United States Air Force, Col. Kearney has been stationed overseas in Iraq, Japan, and Belgium, and in California, Colorado, Illinois, South Dakota, and Washington, D.C.

VALERIE M. NANNERY is the 2016-2017 Fellow assigned to the Federal Judicial Center, the education and research agency for the federal courts. Ms. Nannery joins the Supreme Court Fellows Program from the Center for Constitutional Litigation, P.C., where she is Senior Litigation Counsel. Ms. Nannery has also served as a Vice-Chair of the Appellate Advocacy Committee of the American Bar Association’s Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section since 2013. Ms. Nannery earned a B.A. in American Studies from Cornell University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was an Editorial Board Member of the Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, and a semifinalist in the William Minor Lile Moot Competition. Prior to her work at the Center for Constitutional Litigation, Ms. Nannery was an Associate at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan in Los Angeles, and Supreme Court Assistance Project Coordinator at the Public Citizen Litigation Group in Washington, D.C. She is admitted to practice in California and the District of Columbia.

CHRISTINE S. SCOTT-HAYWARD is the 2016-2017 Fellow assigned to the United States Sentencing Commission, the agency responsible for establishment of sentencing policies and practices for the federal courts. Dr. Scott-Hayward joins the Supreme Court Fellows Program from California State University, Long Beach, where she is an Assistant Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at the School of Criminology, Criminal Justice, and Emergency Management. Dr. Scott-Hayward earned a B.C.L. from the University College Dublin School of Law, where she was awarded the Royal Insurance Gold Medal for Tort and the Bank of Ireland Bronze Medal in Jurisprudence. Dr. Scott-Hayward then subsequently earned a M.A. in Social Science from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Law and Society from New York University, where she was a McCracken Fellow. Prior to teaching at California State University, Dr. Scott-Hayward was an Associate-in-Law at Columbia Law School, a law clerk to the Honorable James Orenstein, United States Magistrate Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and a Research Associate at the Center on Sentencing and Corrections at Vera Institute of Justice in New York. She is admitted to practice in New York.