Federal Judicial Service
Wood was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit by President Bill Clinton on March 31, 1995, to a seat vacated when William Joseph Bauer took senior status. She was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate and received her commission on June 30, 1995. Wood became the second woman ever to sit on the Seventh Circuit. On the bench, Wood is known for building consensus on the court and rallying other judges around her positions. Neil A. Lewis has called Wood an “unflinching and spirited intellectual counterweight" to the Seventh Circuit's well-known conservative heavyweights, Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook.
Wood is considered a likely candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court in an Obama Administration. Speculation that she might be appointed intensified after Justice David Souter's retirement announcement, and Wood was the first candidate interviewed for the post by President Barack Obama, who met with her at the White House while she was visiting from Chicago. When Justice John Paul Stevens announced that he would retire at the end of October Term 2010, Wood's name was again widely put forward as a likely replacement.
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