We are pleased to introduce the HNBF’s 2022 Judicial Leadership awardee. Please join us as we honor Judge Adalberto Jordán for his outstanding achievements and his commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Adalberto Jordán was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1961, and emigrated to the United States with his family in 1968. He and his wife, Esther, have two daughters, Diana and Elizabeth.
After graduating from St. Brendan High School, he obtained his bachelor’s degree in 1984 and his juris doctor degree in 1987 from the University of Miami. Following law school he clerked for Judge Thomas Clark of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the United States Supreme Court. He then returned to Miami, and was in private practice at Steel Hector & Davis from 1989-1994 before working as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Florida from 1994-1999. During his last year at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he was head of the appellate division.
In 1999 President Clinton appointed him as a district judge for the Southern District of Florida. He served in that capacity until 2012, when President Obama appointed him as a circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
He is an adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Law, the Florida International University College of Law, and the St. Thomas University College of Law. He has also been a lecturer at Harvard Law School.
He served on the ABA Standing Committee on Federal Judicial Improvements from 2010-12, and on the Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules from 2010-16. He is a member of the American Law Institute and of the Judicial Advisory Board of the American Society of International Law.
