Judge Sharon Gleason
Alaska U.S. District Court
Sharon Louise Gleason was born in October 1957 in Rochester, New York. She earned an undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis and received a Juris Doctor from the University of California Davis School of Law. She clerked for the chief justice of the Alaska Supreme Court.
Gleason interned at the Conservation Law Foundation and at the Office of Energy Assessments within the California Department of General Services. She entered private practice and was a teaching assistant at UC Davis.
President Barack Obama nominated Gleason to the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska. She was confirmed in an 87-8 vote in the Senate and received her commission in January 2012. She is the first woman to serve as a judge in the District of Alaska.
In the News…
After conservationists and indigenous groups argued against it, U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason is permitting the sale of oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The ruling involves a region valued by conservationists for its beauty and wildlife and seen as sacred to some indigenous people but viewed by others as a way to boost oil production and create jobs.
In her ruling, Judge Gleason said the groups had not shown the likelihood of harm necessary for her to grant an injunction and found the government had not taken final action on a survey proposal. She left open the possibility for the groups to seek a future injunction if the Bureau of Land Management approves “ground-disturbing activities” in the refuge’s coastal plain before she rules in the underlying cases.
Contact this Leader…
Did you pray for Judge Gleason today? You can let her know at:
The Honorable Sharon Gleason
U.S. District Court for Alaska
222 W. 7th Avenue
Anchorage, AK 99513
