The Honorable Gilbert S. Merritt
Adjunct Professor of Law
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
LL.M. Harvard University
LL.B. Vanderbilt University
B.A. Yale University
Judge Merritt was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit by President Jimmy Carter in 1977, and he served as Chief Judge from 1989 to 1996.
Judge Merritt was chairman of the Executive Committee of Judicial Conferences of the United States from 1994 to 1996 and chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on International Judicial Relations for two years. He has served on many other committees and commissions of the federal judiciary.
During his years of private practice with Boult Hunt Cummins & Connors and Gullett Steele Sanford Robinson & Merritt, he specialized in federal civil and criminal litigation.
Judge Merritt was Assistant Dean at Vanderbilt University Law School from 1960 to 1961 and a professor here from 1969 to 1970, after which he continued to lecture part-time for 13 years. He has served as United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, Metropolitan Attorney for Nashville and Davidson County, a delegate to the Tennessee Constitutional Convention of 1965, Finance Chairman and Counsel to the Tennessee Democratic Executive Committee, and as Executive Secretary of the Tennessee Code Commission.
In addition to his distinguished list of published works, he has written approximately 3,000 appellate opinions.
At Vanderbilt, Judge Merritt teaches Litigating the Capital Punishment Case.
