Holly Lou Teeter ( Hydeman; born 1979) is a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district, which each cover o ...

of the

United States District Court for the District of Kansas The United States District Court for the District of Kansas (in case citations, D. Kan.) is the federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of Kansas. The Court operates out of the Robert J. Dole United States Courthouse in Kansas Ci ...

Early life and education

Teeter was born Holly Lou Hydeman in 1979 in

Kansas City, Kansas Kansas City, abbreviated as "KCK", is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas, and the county seat of Wyandotte County. It is an inner suburb of the older and more populous Kansas City, Missouri, after which it is named. As of ...

. She graduated from

Shawnee Mission Northwest High School Shawnee Mission Northwest High School is a fully accredited public high school located in Shawnee, Kansas, United States, serving students in grades 9-12. It is one of five high schools operated by Shawnee Mission USD 512 school district. The ...

. Teeter studied

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

, graduating in 2002 with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

with highest distinction. She earned a diploma in legal studies from the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

in 2003, then returned to the United States to attend the

University of Kansas School of Law The University of Kansas School of Law is the law school of the University of Kansas, a public research university in Lawrence, Kansas. The University of Kansas Law School was founded in 1893, replacing the earlier Department of Law, which had e ...

, where she was a member of the '' Kansas Law Review''. She graduated in 2006 ranked first in her class with a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

degree and

Order of the Coif The Order of the Coif is an honor society for United States law school graduates. The name is a reference to the ancient English order of advocates, the serjeants-at-law, whose courtroom attire included a coif—a white lawn or silk skullcap, whi ...

honors.

Career

After graduating from law school, Teeter practiced

patent law A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

Los Alamos National Security Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS LLC) was a private limited liability company (LLC) formed by the University of California, Bechtel, BWX Technologies, and URS Energy and Construction (which was purchased by AECOM in 2014). From its creat ...

from 2006 to 2007 and at the Kansas City law firm

Shook, Hardy & Bacon Shook, Hardy & Bacon (SHB), L.L.P. (previously Shook, Hardy, Ottman, Mitchell and Bacon) is a U.S. law firm based in Kansas City, Missouri. In 2012, ''The National Law Journal'' ranked the firm as the 87th largest in the United States. The firm ha ...

from 2007 to 2011. Teeter was a

law clerk A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person, generally someone who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial clerks often play significant ...

for judge

Carlos Murguia Carlos Murguia (born 1957) is a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. Early life and education Murguia is one of seven children of Alfred and Amalia Murguia, who emigrated from Mexico ...

of the

U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas The United States District Court for the District of Kansas (in case citations, D. Kan.) is the United States district court, federal district court whose jurisdiction is the state of Kansas. The Court operates out of the Bob Dole, Robert J. Do ...

from 2011 to 2013 and for judge Brian C. Wimes of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri from 2013 to 2016. In 2016, Teeter was hired by

United States Attorney United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal c ...

Tammy Dickinson Angela Tammy Dickinson (born October 6, 1973) is an American attorney who served as the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri from 2013 to 2017. Education D ...

to serve as a Civil

Assistant United States Attorney An assistant United States attorney (AUSA) is an official career civil service position in the U.S. Department of Justice composed of lawyers working under the U.S. Attorney of each U.S. federal judicial district. They represent the federal gove ...

for Western District of Missouri. Teeter worked at the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

until becoming a judge.

Federal judicial service

On August 3, 2017, President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

nominated Teeter to serve as a United States District Judge of the

, to the seat vacated by Judge Kathryn H. Vratil, who assumed

senior status Senior status is a form of semi-retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the Federal judiciary of the United States, federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of servi ...

on April 22, 2014. On October 17, 2017, a hearing on her nomination was held before the

Senate Judiciary Committee The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nominations, a ...

. On November 7, 2017, Teeter received a "not qualified" rating from the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...

(ABA). The ABA gave Teeter the rating because it believes that one must have 12 years of legal experience to be qualified for the federal bench. Teeter had 11 years and 11 months of experience at the time of the rating. Democratic U.S. Senator

Richard Blumenthal Richard Blumenthal (; born February 13, 1946) is an American lawyer and politician who is the senior United States senator from Connecticut, a seat he has held since 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he is one of the wealthiest members of ...

called the ABA's standard "arbitrary", and Teeter's nomination gained bipartisan approval from the Judiciary Committee, which reported her nomination out of committee by a 19–1 vote on November 9, 2017. Judicial website ''The Vetting Room'' wrote that the ABA's rating was unlikely to impact Teeter's chance at being confirmed, as she has "stellar academic credentials" and has clerked only for judges nominated by Democratic presidents. On January 3, 2018, her nomination was returned to the President under Rule XXXI, Paragraph 6 of the United States Senate. On January 5, 2018, Trump announced his intent to renominate Teeter to a federal judgeship. On January 8, 2018, her renomination was sent to the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

. On January 18, 2018, her nomination was reported out of committee by a 21–0 vote. On August 1, 2018, her nomination was confirmed by

voice vote In parliamentary procedure, a voice vote (from the Latin ''viva voce'', meaning "live voice") or acclamation is a voting method in deliberative assemblies (such as legislatures) in which a group vote is taken on a topic or motion by responding vo ...

. She received her judicial commission on August 3, 2018.

Prominent Cases

* In ''Ricard v. USD 475 Geary County, KS School Bd.'' (2022), Judge Teeter held that a public school teacher had a First Amendment right to disclose the "preferred pronouns" of a student to that student's parents without the student's permission, notwithstanding district policy which purported to forbid such involuntary disclosures. Judge Teeter concluded that the district's policy constituted religious discrimination against the teacher, and interfered with "parents' exercise of a constitutional right to raise their children as they see fit."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Teeter, Holly 1979 births Living people 21st-century American lawyers 21st-century American judges Assistant United States Attorneys Judges of the United States District Court for the District of Kansas Kansas lawyers Missouri lawyers People from Kansas City, Kansas United States district court judges appointed by Donald Trump University of Kansas alumni University of Kansas School of Law alumni 21st-century American women lawyers 21st-century American women judges