Born in Oakland, California, and raised in northern California, DuMont received a Bachelor of Arts (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Warren Memorial High Scholarship Prize) from Yale University in 1983, and a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1986.
DuMont then served as a law clerk to Judge Richard A. Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1986 to 1987.
After his clerkship, he was awarded a Henry Luce Scholarship, which allowed him to spend a year working at a law firm in Bangkok, Thailand.
[4] On April 14, 2010, President Barack Obama nominated DuMont to fill the vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that was to be created by Judge Paul Redmond Michel retiring on May 31, 2010.
NPR commented on the delay in an August 4, 2011 article, stating that "Some of the longest waiting nominees, Louis B. Butler of Wisconsin, Charles Bernard Day of Maryland and Edward Dumont of Washington happen to be black or openly gay".