Hon. Adrienne C. Nelson is a justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. She was appointed to the seat by former Governor Kate Brown on January 2, 2018, filling the vacancy created by the retirement of the Hon. Jack Landau (Ret.). Nelson is the first African-American to sit on the Oregon Supreme Court.
Prior to her appointment, she was a judge for the 4th Judicial District Circuit Court in Multnomah County (2006 to 2018).
Before beginning her judicial career, Nelson served as the senior attorney/coordinator for Portland State University's Student Legal and Mediation Services and was a former associate at Bennett, Hartman, Morris & Kaplan, LLP.
She entered private practice after working as a public defender for Multnomah Defenders, Inc.
Nelson also taught as an adjunct professor at Lewis & Clark Law School.
She received a B.A. in English and criminal justice from the University of Arkansas. Nelson went on to complete a J.D. at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law in 1993. She was admitted to practice in Oregon (1996) and Washington (2005).
She served as a delegate to the American Bar Association House of Delegates and the Oregon State Bar and is a past president of the Owen M. Panner American Inn of Court. Nelson also sat on the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Public Education and was chair of the Lewis & Clark Law School Judge Roosevelt Robinson Scholarship Committee.
From a civic standpoint, she has been involved with the Reed College Board of Trustees; the Literary Arts Board; the Oregon Community Foundation Metropolitan Portland Leadership Council; the Self-Enhancement, Inc. Board of Directors; and the Girls Scouts Beyond Bars Advisory Board.
Among her many accolades, Nelson was named a Woman of Influence by the Portland Business Journal and a Woman of Achievement by the Oregon Commission on Women in 2020.
She was nominated by President Joe Biden to the United States District Court for the District of Oregon on July 14, 2022. At the end of 2022, she was still pending confirmation by the United States Senate.
Nelson was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in Arkansas, where she was valedictorian of Guron High School. She moved to Oregon in 1994. In 2021, Adrienne C. Nelson High School, in the North Clackamas School District, was named in her honor.