Todd E. Edelman

Todd Eric Edelman (born January 16, 1968) is an American lawyer who has served as an associate judge for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia since 2010. He is a former nominee to be a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

Early life and education

Edelman was born in 1968, in St. Louis, Missouri. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, in 1990 from Yale University. He received a Juris Doctor, cum laude, in 1994 from the New York University School of Law where he was a Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar.

Career Edelman began his legal career as a law clerk to Judge William B. Bryant of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, from 1994 to 1995. From 1995 to 1997, he was an E. Barrett Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center. He worked for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia from 1997 to 2005, during which time he served as a staff attorney for the Trial Division from 1997 to 2001, a supervising attorney for the Trial Division from 2001 to 2002, the chief of the Serious Felony Section from 2002 to 2004, and the training director from 2004 to 2005. In recognition of Edelman's public service achievements, Harvard Law School awarded Edelman a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellowship for the 2003–04 academic year. From 2005 to 2008, he was of counsel at the law firm Bredhoff & Kaiser, P.L.L.C. in Washington, D.C. From 2008 to 2010, he was a visiting associate professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center.

Edelman has served as an associate judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia since 2010. As a Superior Court judge, he has presided over cases in the Civil, Criminal, and Domestic Violence Divisions. He served as Presiding Judge of the Superior Court’s Civil Division from 2023 to 2024 and as Deputy Presiding Judge from 2021 to 2022. Edelman served on Saving DC's Rental Housing Market Strike Force, an advisory body created by Mayor Muriel Bowser in January 2021 to address challenges facing the District's rental housing market and its post-pandemic future, and, , is a member of the District of Columbia Sentencing Commission. On April 23, 2025, the District of Columbia Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure found Edelman well qualified for reappointment, a determination that under D.C. Code § 1-204.33(c) automatically extended his term by fifteen years upon its expiration on June 23, 2025.

Edelman serves on the faculty of the Harvard Law School Trial Advocacy Workshop, where he received a Charles Fahy Distinguished Adjunct Professor Award among the Law Center's 2021–22 teaching awards.

Notable cases In May 2020, Edelman presided over the trial of Christian Wingfield on charges of illegal possession of a firearm by a felon. Wingfield was part of a group the police initially arrested and charged with murder, but later analysis indicated that he had not fired a gun that night.

Renomination to U.S. district court under Biden On July 29, 2022, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Edelman to serve as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. On September 27, 2022, his nomination was sent to the Senate. President Biden nominated Edelman to the seat vacated by Judge Florence Y. Pan, who was elevated to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. On November 15, 2022, a hearing on his nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Republicans attacked Edelman for his handling of the Christian Wingfield case, saying the release of Wingfield during the coronavirus pandemic led to the murder of an 11-year old. On January 3, 2023, Edelman's nomination was once again returned to the president.