Ms. Beck is the daughter of Erwin Beck and Frances Urbanek Beck, both of whom

are deceased. She was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She has been a D.C.

resident for more than 22 years.

Ms. Beck received her B.A. from the University of Michigan, after spending her junior

year in England at the London School of Economics. She received her J.D. from Yale Law

School in 1972. As part of her legal training, she spent a semester at the Center for law and

Social Policy in Washington, D.C, working on litigation involving the rights of mentally ill and

mentally retarded adults and children.

After graduating fro law school, Ms. Beck served as judicial clerk to the Honorable

Theodore R. Newman, Jr., then on the D.C. Superior Court bench. Thereafter, Ms. Beck

was a staff attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia.

In 1977, Ms. Beck joined the law firm of Rogovin, Stern, and Huge, where she was

an associate and then the first woman partner. (1980-1985). While at the Rogovin firm, Ms.

Beck was involved in a wide range of civil and criminal litigation matters and served as

outside deputy special counsel to what was then the Civil Service Commission.

Since 1985, Ms. Beck has been a solo practitioner with a general civil litigation

practice.

Ms. Beck’s volunteer activities have included serving as a court-appointed mediator

at the Superior Court; as a member of a special committee of the D.C. bar investigating the

relationship between the Superior Court bench and attorneys appointed to represent

indigent defendants under the Criminal Justice Act; as a volunteer attorney at the

Neighborhood Legal Services Program and as a child-life volunteer at Children’s Hospital.

Ms. Beck is married to Paul R. Friedman, who is serving as a Deputy Associate

Attorney General at the United States Department of Justice. They have three children--

Mali, Luke, and Jed.