George B. Daniels's career took two turns he had not planned: a clerkship in California and a job advising New York City's mayor. By the time he became a federal judge in Manhattan, he had represented criminal defendants, prosecuted federal cases and served on New York's trial courts.
Born in Allendale, South Carolina, in 1953, Daniels graduated from Yale in 1975 and earned his law degree at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1978. He began as a trial attorney with New York's Legal Aid Society. Two years later, he moved to California to clerk for Rose Bird, chief justice of that state's Supreme Court.
Daniels recalled that a law-school friend mentioned Bird was looking for someone with criminal-law experience to review petitions, many involving the death penalty. He pursued the opportunity and received an offer. After the clerkship, he returned to New York, worked in private practice and became an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York in 1983. His six years there added the government's perspective to his earlier experience in defense.
In 1989, Daniels joined New York City's Criminal Court. He left the bench in 1990 to become counsel to Mayor David Dinkins, then returned to the Criminal Court in 1993. Two years later he became a justice of the New York State Supreme Court. President Bill Clinton nominated him to the federal district court in 1999; the Senate confirmed him in February 2000. Daniels assumed senior status in May 2021.
That range of experience also figures in how he teaches. In a Berkeley Law interview, former clerk Maripau Paz described learning from Daniels to think about why an argument matters and whether it helps the court reach a sound result. Technical grounds for an objection do not, by themselves, explain its purpose. Daniels's emphasis was on judgment alongside legal knowledge.
He described keeping clerkships to one year so more people could have the experience.
