On November 8th, 2022, Judge Karen K. Herman was elected to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal. She was elected as a judge of criminal district court in 2008 and re-elected without opposition in 2014 and again in 2020. Immediately upon taking the bench in criminal court, Herman volunteered to assume the responsibilities of presiding over the state’s first mental health court, in addition to the Section I docket, as well as a specialty drug court, over which Herman presided for more than nine years. Herman’s mental health court has become a model for other similar specialty courts around the state.
Herman served as Chief Judge of Criminal District Court. In addition to the responsibility for managing her own docket, Judge Herman, as Chief Judge, also oversaw a number of administrative functions and served as an ex officio member on all of the court's committees.
She was elected to the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal in 2022, after a seat was vacated by Judge James McKay, who has retired from a long and distinguished career of service on the Criminal Court bench and the Court of Appeal. Orleans, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines Parishes make up the district.
Prior to her election in 2008, Herman served as the executive director of Court Watch NOLA, where she received high marks for helping the court system to get back on track after the disruption from Hurricane Katrina. Previous to that, Herman spent years in the New Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, where she served as a trial attorney, a homicide screener, and was instrumental in establishing the Violent Offender Strike Force.
Since taking the bench, Herman has distinguished herself as one of the court's most efficient judges, consistently high in the rankings according to the annual reports released by the Metropolitan Crime Commission. Herman serves as the vice chair of the Committee on Justice System Funding for the Louisiana District Judges Association, as an assistant bar examiner in the Louisiana State Bar Criminal Law Section, and as an adjunct professor teaching trial advocacy at Tulane Law School.
Outside of the courtroom, Herman serves on the board of the Cancer Association of Louisiana and is an Emeritus Board Member of the Eden House.
A New Orleans native, Herman graduated cum laude from Tulane Law School, having earned a bachelor’s degree from Emory University, where she was a nationally ranked tennis player. Before that, Herman was an All-Metro academic athlete while attending high school at St. Martin’s.
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