She later earned her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, where she served as a member of the Board of Student Advisers, graduating cum laude in 1976.

[citation needed] President Ronald Reagan nominated Raggi to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York on January 20, 1987, to a seat vacated by Judge Frank Altimari, who was elevated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on December 11, 1985.

[2] She was the first woman to serve on the 14-member bench in the Eastern District of New York and, at 35 years old, one of the youngest federal judges in the United States.

Raggi presided over the Golden Venture trial, in which a ship carrying around 300 would-be immigrants from China crash-landed on a sandbar off Queens, New York, in June 1993.

[2] President George W. Bush nominated Raggi for the Second Circuit on May 1, 2002, to replace Judge Amalya Kearse, who assumed senior status on June 11, 2002.