[1][2] At the start of her legal career, she served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 2006 to 2007, and then for Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States from 2007 to 2008.

[1] Prior to her service in the United States Department of Justice's Office of the Solicitor General, she served for four years as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2013, where she served as trial counsel in ten felony trials and argued seven appeals in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

She was nominated to the seat that was vacated by Judge Carol Amon, who assumed senior status on November 30, 2016.

[7] On January 3, 2019, her nomination was returned to the President under Rule XXXI, Paragraph 6 of the United States Senate.

[8] On April 8, 2019, President Trump announced the renomination of Kovner to the district court.