Guess what! We’re champs at Bridge too!
Amalya Lyle Kearse (born June 11, 1937) is a Senior United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and a world-class Bridge player.
Kearse was born in Vauxhall, New Jersey. Here parents were physician Myra Lyle Smith Kearse and postmaster Robert Freeman Kearse. A philosophy major and 1959 graduate of Wellesley College. She was the only black woman in her law school class at the University of Michigan Law School. She was an editor of the law review and graduated with a Juris Doctor cum laude in 1962. She entered private practice in New York City and rose to become a partner in the respected Wall Street firm of Hughes Hubbard & Reed. She was an adjunct lecturer at New York University Law School from 1968 to 1969.
Kearse was nominated by President Jimmy Carter on May 3, 1979, to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, to a new seat authorized by 92 Stat. 1629. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 19, 1979, and received her commission on June 21, 1979. At the time, she was the first woman and only the second black person (after Thurgood Marshall) on the court. She assumed senior status on June 11, 2002.
Kearse is also known as a world-class bridge player. She was named Bridge Personality of the Year by the International Bridge Press Association in 1980.
In 1986, playing with longtime bridge partner Jacqui Mitchell, she won the World Women Pairs Championship which earned her the title of World Bridge Federation World Life Master. She is also a seven-time U.S. national champion of the game. Kearse’s most recent victory was in 2004 at the American Contract Bridge League’s North American Bridge Championship where she and Jacqui Mitchell won the Whitehead Women’s Pairs.
Judge Kearse is considered an authority on the theory of the game and has written two books on the subject. She also edited the third edition of ”The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge” and has translated bridge books into English. She is also a member of the editorial board of Charles Goren, the recognized bridge authority.
In 2002, Kearse was inducted into the Bridge Hall of Fame.