Merrick Garland is the current head of the Department of Justice in the capacity of United States Attorney General. Garland has spent most of his professional life as an attorney, a jurist, and as a judge. He was nominated for the position of a Supreme Court Justice by the Obama Administration, but his nomination was not considered due to the time left in the Obama presidency. Garland was a circuit judge for the United States Court of Appeals from 1997 to 2021; he was served as the United States Attorney General since March 2021.
| Celebrated Name: | Merrick Garland |
| Real Name/Full Name: | Merrick Brian Garland |
| Gender: | Male |
| Age: | 69 |
| Birthdate: | November 13, 1952 |
| Birthplace: | Chicago, IL |
| Nationality: | American |
| Height: | 5 ft. 7 in. |
| Weight: | 132 lb. |
| Sexual Orientation: | Straight |
| Marital Status: | Married |
| Wife/Spouse | Lynn Rosenman |
| Children/Kids: | Two daughters, Rebecca and Jessica |
| Dating/Girlfriend Name: | N/A |
| Is Merrick Garland Gay? | No |
| Highest Political Office: | United States Attorney General |
| Profession: | Attorney and politician |
| Colleges Attended: | Harvard University |
| Degrees: | Bachelor’s, Social Studies; Juris Doctor |
| Salary: | $221,400 |
| Net Worth in 2022: | $23 million |
Biography: Early Life and Family
Merrick Brian Garland was born in Chicago, Illinois on November 13, 1952. His family lived in the Lincolnwood suburb of the Windy City, and his parents were working individuals. Garland’s father, Cyril, was the head of a small business called Garland Advertising, which Mr. Garland ran out of the family home. Garland’s mother, Shirley, worked at Chicago’s Council for Jewish Elderly as a director of volunteer services.
The Garlands were Conservative Jews; the family name was originally Garfinkel. Merrick Garland’s grandparents left the Russian empire amid antisemitic pograms in the Pale of Settlement. The family had changed their name several generations prior to immigrating to the United States.
Garland has always been a star student. He graduated from Niles West High School as the valedictorian. He was highly involved in extracurricular activities. He was the president of the student council as well as a member of the debate team. He also actively participated in the theater program on campus. Garland was named a Presidential Scholar as well as a National Merit Scholar.
Garland enrolled at Harvard University, where he concentrated in Social Studies. Garland’s original plan for his education was to become a physician. However, he decided instead to become an attorney. While he attended Harvard, Garland volunteered during the summer as a speechwriter for Congressman Abner J. Mikva. Later, when then-President Jimmy Carter appointed the Congressman to the D.C. Circuit Court, Mikva would rely on advisement from Garland as to whom he selected to clerk under him. Garland wrote for the Harvard Crimson, and he was a Quincy House tutor while attending the university. Garland would graduate from Harvard in 1974 summa cum laude with his concentration in Social Studies. He was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa as well.
Garland enrolled at Harvard Law School soon after. He wrote for and was considered a member of the Harvard Law Review. He was an articles editor; he had originally campaigned to become the president of the writing team, but he lost to a classmate. His position as an article editor would allow him to communicate with a United States Supreme Court Justice, William Brennan. Garland was editing a submission by Brennan, and he began exchanging ideas with Brennan. Eventually, Garland was able to clerk under Brennan. Garland had originally been tasked with editing Brennan’s submission on the topic of state constitutions and individual rights.
Garland earned his Juris Doctor in 1977. He graduated magna cum laude with this certification.
Personal Life
Garland married his wife, Lynn (nee Rosenman), in September 1987. The pair married at the Harvard Club in Manhattan, New York City.
Rosenman had ties to politics and the law herself. Her grandfather was a justice in the Supreme Court of New York. He was also a special counsel to both Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
Rosenman herself also attended Harvard University, with a Master of Science degree. Today, Lynn Garland advises both government and nonprofit groups on the security of voting systems.
Merrick Garland and his wife Lynn have two daughters, Jessica and Rebecca.
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan hired Jessica as a law clerk in 2020 before her father had been appointed to the position of United States Attorney General by President Joe Biden. However, due to a potential conflict of interest, Jessica will not serve as a clerk for Justice Kagan as long as her father is the U.S. Attorney General. Jessica graduated from Yale Law School in 2019.
Garland’s other daughter, Rebecca, is married to Xan Tanner; her father was a part of the ceremony in June 2018. Rebecca attended Yale as well. Rebecca’s husband, Xan, founded and is currently the president of the Panorama Education Company. The company put out an article in 2021 that claimed the Ku Klux Klan and Trump supporters are prime examples of “white supremacy,” according to a Daily Mail article.
During Senate hearings this summer, Senator Ted Cruz questioned Garland on whether his son-in-law published materials that promoted the teaching of Critical Race Theory.
Today, Merrick Garland and his wife reside in Bethesda, Maryland.
Age, Height, and Weight
Merrick Garland is 69 years old. He is approximately 5′ 7″ in height, and he weighs approximately 132 lbs.
Net Worth
Merrick Garland is said to be worth approximately $23 million. While many of those in Biden’s current cabinet left a government post while President Donald Trump was in office, Garland did not, continuing to work as a circuit judge out of Washington, DC. According to an article in Forbes magazine, Merrick Garland and his wife amassed the fortune which they possess as a result of inheriting assets.
Some of the money inherited by Garland was tied up in real estate as well as other assets. He also had money that accumulated from pensions. He worked in private practice for a number of years, and that money is a part of his net worth as well.
Garland is one of the richest members of the Joe Biden Cabinet.
Career Outside of Politics
Once he graduated from Harvard Law School, Garland clerked under Judge Henry Friendly and then for Justice William Brennan. Garland was a special assistant to the United States Attorney General at the time, Benjamin Civiletti.
After Jimmy Carter left the presidency, Garland worked in a private law firm, Arnold & Porter. Garland was made a partner in the firm, a firm that mostly dealt with corporate litigation, in 1985.
Garland also continued to write for the Harvard Law Review. In fact, he wrote an article for the magazine after working a case that attempted to delegate how mandates worked in private companies.
Garland taught anti-trust law at Harvard; he was considered a lecturer and not a tenured professor.
Garland wrote for the Yale Law Review in addition to writing for his own alma mater.
Garland would work at Arnold and Porter once more, from 1992 to 1993. He was then a member of the Clinton Administration. Here, Garland worked under his mentor, Jamie Gorelick.
Career in Politics
In 1989, Merrick Garland would becoem the Assistant United States Attorney General for the office out of the District of Columbia. Garland was considered a line prosecutor. He prosecuted cases involving public corruption as well as drug trafficking cases. he was one of the prosecutors who handled the Marion Barry case when the former mayor was caught with cocaine in his possession.
In 1993, Garland became a deputy assistant attorney general for the Clinton Administration. He worked in the criminal division of the U.S. Department of Justice. At this time, Garland’s mentor, Jamie Gorelick, asked Garland to be her associate deputy attorney general.
While Garland worked in this position, he prosecuted the Oklahoma City bombing as well as the “Unabomber” case (the Ted Kaczynski case). Garland also investigated the bombings in Atlanta, Georgia during the Olympics.
Garland served the public as a judge for a circuit court between 1997 and 2021.
Garland was considered a nominee for a Supreme Court Justice position that was left open when Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly in 2016. Garland had been considered previously in 2009 and 2010; however, he was not actually nominated until 2016 – at the very end of the Obama Administration.
Senate Republicans said at the time of Antonin Scalia’s death that they believed the nomination of a new Supreme Court Justice should be left for the new president (who would eventually be Donald Trump) to choose. Although the Obama Administration argued that there was no tradition or legal precedent as to whether a president in his last year of office could nominate a new Supreme Court Justice, the Senate Republicans held their ground. Garland was never fully nominated for the position. Garland, however, had more federal experience than any other Supreme Court nominee in history.
Currently, Garland is the head of the Department of Justice in Joe Biden’s Administration.
