Trump is putting a generation of young judges on the bench — for life

October 5, 2026 3oliver

Trump is putting a generation of young judges on the bench — for life

Erica Orden

Updated Sun, October 4, 2026 at 2:00 PM UTC

U.S. President Donald Trump walks down the West Wing colonnade to the Rose Garden to deliver an update on the so-called "Operation Warp Speed" program, the joint Defense Department and HHS initiative that has struck deals with several drugmakers in an effort to help speed up the search for effective treatments for the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, at the White House in Washington, U.S., November 13, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Barria — U.S. President Donald Trump walks down the West Wing colonnade to the Rose Garden to deliver an update on the so-called “Operation Warp Speed” program, the joint Defense Department and HHS initiative that has struck deals with several drugmakers in an effort to help speed up the search for effective treatments for the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, at the White House in Washington, U.S., November 13, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

President Donald Trump has appointed far more federal judges who are under 40 than his predecessors — ensuring that his imprint on the judiciary will last for decades.

Over the course of his two terms to date, Trump has appointed 31 people in their 30s to federal judgeships, and at least two more are pending in the Senate, according to a POLITICO analysis of government data. By contrast, President Joe Biden appointed 13 people in their 30s. President Barack Obama appointed just nine judges younger than 40 during his two terms.

A judge in his or her 30s can remain in place for as long as 60 years — there are multiple sitting judges in their 90s and one who is 102 — allowing the president who appointed them to leave a particularly long-lasting imprint on the courts.

“President Trump selects highly-qualified and credentialed judicial nominees who have passed the White House’s rigorous vetting process. Wherever there are judicial vacancies, President Trump will select highly qualified nominees with great respect for our Constitution and rule of law to be confirmed expeditiously,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said.

Trump’s young nominees include Samuel Adkisson, an associate in the White House Counsel’s Office who was 33 when Trump nominated him — making him one of the youngest people ever nominated to the federal bench. In his social media post announcing Adkisson’s nomination, which is currently pending in the Senate, Trump praised his work on a case that resulted in the Supreme Court widening the president’s power to control executive branch agencies.

“Sam Adkisson is one of the brightest young conservative lawyers in the country and has been a standout member of the White House Counsel’s Office. He will make an outstanding judge on the Eastern District of Tennessee,” Bis said.

Earlier this week, Adkisson’s confirmation hearing was delayed after Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn declined to sign offon his nomination, using a procedural maneuver as one of his home-state senators. She hasn’t explained why.

“I think both parties, but especially Donald Trump in his second term, are placing a premium on youth because younger judges serve for longer and exert greater influence over important issues that come before the courts,” said David Lat, a lawyer-turned-writer who publishes a Substack on legal affairs called Original Jurisdiction.

John Michael Vazquez, who was the youngest district judge in New Jersey when he joined the bench in 2016 at 45 years old, said young judges can still have the experience they need to do the job well.

“You can have somebody get out of law school at 25, and try a number of cases, appear in court regularly, and understand the dynamics of how a court works — those things that you can only gain through experience, you can’t really gain through a textbook,” said Vazquez, who is retired from the bench. “I do think that’s critically important because it informs, ultimately, the most important aspect in my view of being a judge, which is your judgment.”

But some young jurists have acknowledged that their age has been held against them.

Obama nominee Edmond E. Chang became the youngest serving federal judge in the country when he was confirmed in 2010. He said lawyers appearing before him would sometimes attempt “what I call Jedi mind tricks” to take advantage of his youth.

“I do believe that the relative youth at the time did cause some lawyers to treat me differently than other judges; that they would try to navigate around decisions or rulings,” Chang said in 2024. “They’ll make an argument, deliver it with such confidence, hoping to – I thought – to kind of misdirect a new judge, and a youthful one at that, into their position when it was just – no, it was just wrong.”

Trump, though, went even younger.

Kathryn Kimball Mizelle claimed the title of youngest federal judge in 2020, when Trump nominated her to a Florida court at age 33.

During her confirmation process, the American Bar Association deemed her “not qualified,“ largely due to what it described as her lack of experience. Asked about this during her confirmation hearing, Mizelle replied: “I can just point to my record, in-court litigation, and to the support that I have from over 200 attorneys that have submitted letters to this committee, explaining that they’ve worked with me, they’ve witnessed my abilities, my work product, my integrity, and they support my nomination.”

In 2018, Trump nominated Allison Jones Rushing, then 36, to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, making her the youngest circuit court judge confirmed in more than 15 years. At the time, her nomination spurred Orin Kerr, a professor at Stanford Law School, to question the wisdom of placing such a young person on the federal appellate bench.

“Being a judicial-restraint-oriented type myself, I worry about judges getting rather intoxicated with the judicial power,” Kerr wrote. “And I would guess that there is some correlation between the age a person became a judge and how tempted they are to drink enthusiastically from the tap of judicial power.”