After law school, Gleason was a law clerk for chief justice Edmond W. Burke of the Alaska Supreme Court from 1983 to 1984. She was in private practice at the Alaska law firm Reese, Rice & Volland from 1984 to 1995,[4] and as a sole legal practitioner from 1995 to 2001.
On April 6, 2011, President Barack Obama nominated Gleason to the United States District Court for the District of Alaska to a vacancy that had been created by Judge John W. Sedwick, who assumed senior status on March 13, 2011.[6][7] The nomination occurred on the recommendation of SenatorMark Begich.[6] On September 8, 2011, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported her nomination to the Senate floor by a voice vote.[8] The United States Senate confirmed Gleason by an 87–8 vote on November 15, 2011.[9] She received her commission on January 4, 2012. She became chief judge on January 1, 2022.[5]
Notable cases
On July 31, 2015, Gleason ruled that environmental group Greenpeace USA would be fined $2,500 for each hour its activists block a Shell Oil (A Dutch owned corporation) icebreaking ship from leaving Portland by dangling from the St. Johns Bridge. The Shell icebreaker was part of a controversial move by Congress to allow a foreign-based corporation to drill in the Arctic. However by September 2015 Shell had abandoned their attempts to establish drilling operations in Alaska, citing dangerous conditions, high costs (over $7 billion spent), and little evidence of oil in the areas they had attempted to explore.[10]
On March 29, 2019, Gleason issued two additional rulings related to Alaskan environmental issues.[11] One ruling found that the administration of Donald Trump unlawfully sought to open the Chukchi Sea to offshore drilling activities. This area had previously been withdrawn from consideration while Barack Obama was president. Gleason's finding hinged on the fact that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953 permits a President to withdraw certain areas from eligibility for offshore drilling, but only Congress can add such areas. A separate ruling blocked the Trump administration's attempts to use a land transfer to facilitate construction of a road through a federally-designated wetland in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. The road would have connected the towns of King Cove and Cold Bay. A different land transfer plan had already been rejected in 2013 by the Department of the Interior. Secretary Sally Jewell, in announcing the rejection, indicated that construction of the road would cause "irreversible damage not only to the Refuge itself, but to the wildlife that depend on it".[12]
On November 9, 2023, Gleason upheld the Biden administration's approval of the Willow project and rejected claims by an Iñupiat group and environmentalists against it.[14]
Personal life
Sharon L. Gleason is the granddaughter of Estonian politician Timotheus Grünthal and Estonian feminist and lawyer Vera Poska-Grünthal.[15] Estonian politician, lawyer and diplomat Jaan Poska was her great grandfather.
