Cornelia Groefsema Kennedy

Cornelia Groefsema Kennedy (née Groefsema; August 4, 1923 – May 12, 2014) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Education and career Born in Detroit, Michigan, Kennedy graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1945 and at the top of her class from the University of Michigan Law School with a Juris Doctor in 1947. After law school, she clerked for Chief Judge Harold Montelle Stephens of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where she was one of the first women to clerk on that court. In 1965 Kennedy ran for Wayne County Circuit Court judge and lost by fewer than 100 votes. Kennedy and her sister, Judge Margaret G. Schaeffer, were the first sister judges in the United States. Schaeffer sat on the 47th District Court in Farmington Hills, Michigan from 1974 to 1992. She was in private practice of law in Detroit from 1948 to 1966. She was a judge of the Michigan Circuit Court for the Third Judicial Circuit from 1966 to 1970. Federal judicial service