Taryn Merkl named as magistrate judge for Brooklyn Federal Court

May 3, 2021 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

U.S. Magistrate Judge Taryn A. Merkl, EDNY. Photo courtesy of EDNY

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The Board of Judges of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY) has selected Taryn A. Merkl to serve as a magistrate judge for a term of eight years. She is slated to serve on the bench at the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Courthouse, also known as the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse, at 225 Cadman Plaza East.

Before her appointment, Ms. Merkl served as senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, where she conducted criminal justice research and authored policy recommendations, reports and analyses.

Previously, she served for more than 16 years as an assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, where she handled a wide range of cases, including complex racketeering, human trafficking, white collar, and criminal civil rights cases.

While at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, she served as deputy chief of the Criminal Division, chief of the Civil Rights Section and Organized Crime and Gangs Section, and deputy chief of the Organized Crime and Gangs Section and General Crimes Section.

As chief of the Civil Rights Section from 2013 to 2019, she supervised all criminal civil rights and human trafficking cases in the district and was the founding co-chair of the Brooklyn Human Trafficking Task Force. She also served as a lecturer at Columbia Law School for more than 10 years, teaching a course on federal criminal litigation, and as an adjunct professor of white-collar crime at Cardozo School of Law.

Merkl received her J.D. from Columbia Law School and her B.A. from the University of Michigan. After law school, she served as a law clerk to Chief Judge John M. Walker, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and to Judge Jan E. DuBois of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

“The Board of Judges welcomes Taryn Merkl to the Eastern District bench,” said Chief Judge Margo K. Brodie. “We believe her research and academic experience and many years as an active litigator have prepared her well to be a magistrate judge.”

Magistrate judges are appointed by the District Court Judges to eight-year terms. They assist district court judges with the work of the court by facilitating the disposition of civil and criminal cases.