Nancy Winkelman, Esquire

2020 American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Third Circuit

Nancy Winkelman, Esquire, has been selected to receive the prestigious 2020 American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Third Circuit. She was nominated for the award by Chief Judge D. Brooks Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, with the support of the Judicial Council of the Circuit. Since 2018, Winkelman has led the law division of the district attorney’s office in Philadelphia.

Before assuming that role, Winkelman was a partner in the Philadelphia law firm Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP. In her nearly three decades at the firm, Winkelman focused on federal and state appellate litigation as cochair of the firm’s litigation services department and its appellate practice group. In addition to appearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and many other appellate courts, Winkelman also presented argument before the Supreme Court of the United States. In 2001, she argued Booth v. Churner, representing the plaintiff pro bono in a prisoner civil rights case that addressed a circuit split on the exhaustion of administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act.

“While she was at Schnader, Nancy devoted thousands of hours to so many different pro bono causes, not just prisoners’ rights, but immigration and asylum matters, First Amendment issues, and others,” says Stephen A. Fogdall, Esquire, of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis, who wrote in support of the nomination of his former partner for the award.

In 2016, Winkelman served as president of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, having been selected as a fellow of the academy in 2004. In 2007, she cofounded the Third Circuit Bar Association and served as its first president. Winkelman has also taught appellate practice, including 10 years of teaching appellate advocacy at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. She has also taught appellate advocacy at Temple University Beasley School of Law. She is a former board member of both the Disabilities Law Project and the Disabilities Rights Network of Pennsylvania. She is a Master of the Bench member of the University of Pennsylvania Law School American Inn of Court.

Winkelman earned her undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Wesleyan University, then earned her law degree from Western New England College School of Law in 1987. She clerked for Judge Dolores Sloviter of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and later led a fundraising effort to establish a memorial to her “life-long mentor” at the judge’s alma mater, Temple University.