"[1][2] Forrest attended Choate Rosemary Hall, a private school in Wallingford, Connecticut, on a scholarship, graduating in 1982.

Her focus shifted when she took a summer job at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP after her second year of law school.

[2] Forrest presided over several thousand cases, including more than 100 trials, and, in 2016, became chair of the Grievance Committee for the Southern District.

[12] In 2012, in Hedges v. Obama, Forrest issued a permanent injunction that blocked enforcement of Section 1021 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorized the president to order the military to indefinitely detain any person deemed to be a member of, or to have provided substantially support to, "al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces.

[15] In 2013, a Second Circuit panel unanimously reversed Forrest's ruling, holding that the plaintiffs lacked standing.

[14] In July 2013, Forrest ordered the release of $1.75 billion in Iranian frozen assets held by Bank Markazi (Iran's central bank) in a New York Citibank account to create a fund for families of the victims of the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marines compound in Beirut, Lebanon.

Forrest rejected the Iranian government's invocation of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, holding that Iran's conduct fell under an exception to FSIA.

"[29] Ragbir spent nine years in the U.S. under a "stay of removal," regularly reporting to immigration authorities as required, until he was abruptly arrested in January 2018, upended his career and separating him from his wife and daughter, both U.S.

"[29][28] Forrest wrote that this was "the freedom to hug one's spouse and children, the freedom to organize the myriad of human affairs that collect over time"; she criticized practices associated "with regimes we revile as unjust, regimes where those who have long lived in a country may be taken without notice from streets, home, and work.

[30] In February 2018, Forrest ruled that Breitbart News, Heavy, Inc., TIME, Yahoo, Vox.com, Gannett Company, Herald Media, The Boston Globe, and New England Sports Network had violated the rights of Justin Goldman by embedding a link to a tweet of an image taken by Goldman of Tom Brady on their respective websites.

The scheme charged mobile phone users millions of dollars in monthly fees for unsolicited and recurring text messages, without their knowledge or consent.

[34][35] Following her resignation from the federal bench, Forrest returned to practice in the litigation department at Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

[38] Forrest represented the Boston Red Sox in a proposed class action alleging that the Major League Baseball team had undermined fantasy sports contests by covering up sign stealing schemes in a case that was dismissed with prejudice in April 2020.

[39] Upon signing a full and unconditional pardon for Ross William Ulbricht United States President Donald Trump criticized Forrest’s character and harsh sentencing: "The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me.