Student Life

Commencement - Speaker Biography

Marjorie Osterlund Rendell ‘73 was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in November of 1997. Prior to that she served as a judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She became the 43rd First Lady of Pennsylvania when her husband, Governor Edward G. Rendell ‘68, was sworn in as Governor of Pennsylvania on January 21, 2003. She received her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from Villanova. Upon graduation from Law School, she joined the law firm of Duane, Morris & Heckscher, where she subsequently became the firm’s second woman partner. Judge Rendell was awarded the 2004 Philadelphia Bar Association’s Sandra Day O’Connor Award and in 2007 she received the Law School’s Alumni Association Award for Excellence. She is a charter member and active with the Law School’s Inn of Court.

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