SHERRILL
Michelle

• 1. Military career
• 2. Law career
• 2.1. Assistant U.S. Attorney

Rebecca Michelle "Mikie" Sherrill is an American politician, former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot, attorney, and former federal prosecutor serving as the U.S. representative for New Jersey's 11th congressional district since 2019. The district includes a swath of suburban and exurban areas west of New York City.

A member of the Democratic Party, Sherrill was elected on November 6, 2018. She was reelected in 2020 by a slightly narrower margin and reelected in 2022 by a wide margin.

Military career

Inspired by her grandfather who served as a pilot in World War II, Sherrill wanted to be a pilot from a young age. She was among the flight school graduates in the first class of women eligible for combat. After graduation from the Naval Academy in 1994, Sherrill became a U.S. Navy H-3 Sea King helicopter pilot and a Russian policy officer. Sherrill flew missions throughout Europe and in the Middle East. In 2000, she was based at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.

Sherrill was a Russian policy officer when she worked at the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Navy, Europe.

Sherrill served in the United States Navy for nine years, the final five as a lieutenant. In 2003 Sherrill was nominated for promotion to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. She left the Navy in 2003 before obtaining a permanent promotion to the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

Law career

In the summer of 2007, while earning her Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University Law Center, Sherrill was a summer associate at Kirkland & Ellis. After graduation from Georgetown University Law Center, Sherrill returned to Kirkland & Ellis's New York City office, where she worked in the litigation department from 2008 to 2011.

Assistant U.S. Attorney

After leaving Kirkland & Ellis, Sherrill joined the United States Attorneys' Office as an outreach and reentry coordinator. In 2015 Sherrill became an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, a federal prosecutor, working under U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman. She left that office in the spring of 2016. At the time, she planned on going into the field of criminal justice reform.