Judge Beetlestone was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama on June 16, 2014, was confirmed by unanimous voice vote by the United
States Senate on November 20, 2014, and received her judicial
commission on November 21, 2014.
Prior to becoming a lawyer, Judge Beetlestone had a career
as a television news journalist. She worked first at the British
Broadcasting Company before being recruited by CNN in Atlanta
and, eventually, moving to Philadelphia to work as a news
producer at Channel 10. After six years as a journalist, Judge
Beetlestone decided to pursue a longstanding interest in the law.
She attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School, serving
on the law review as an articles editor and interning for Judge Jan
E. Dubois. She then served as a law clerk for the late Judge
Robert Gawthrop, III (U.S.D.C. E.D.Pa.).
After clerking Judge Beetlestone became an associate, then
partner, at the law firm of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP
where she developed a wide-ranging complex civil litigation
practice. She then served as the General Counsel for the School
District of Philadelphia before returning to the private practice of
law as a shareholder at Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin &
Schiller. Each year from 2008 through 2014 Judge Beetlestone
was selected by the publication Best Lawyers in America as a Best Lawyer in America in the field of Education Law and in 2012 she
was first named as one of the top 250 women in litigation in the
United States by the Benchmark publication.