Diane P. Wood

Diane P. Wood is a Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Judge Wood attended the University of Texas at Austin, earning her B.A. in 1971 (highest honors), and her J.D. in 1975 (Order of the Coif). She clerked for Judge Irving L. Goldberg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (1975-76), and for Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court (1976-77). She began her career as a legal academic in 1980 after a brief period at the U.S. Department of State.  From 1993 until she was appointed a Circuit Judge for the Seventh Circuit in 1995, she served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. She was Chief Judge of the Seventh Circuit from October 1, 2013 to July 4, 2020. Judge Wood is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and is on the Council of the American Law Institute; she chairs the Academy’s Council. Judge Wood is married to Dr. Robert L. Sufit.  She has three children, three step-children and five grandchildren. She enjoys playing the oboe and English horn in several Chicago-area amateur orchestras.