What’s In the Pipeline for Judicial Vacancies?
A number of important changes to the federal judiciary are underway behind the bench at the Federal Circuit and in district courts where a significant number of patent cases are pending. Several long-serving judges are retiring or taking senior status, and new judges are being selected to fill the vacancies. Below is a chart that lists relevant recent vacancies, identifies replacements that have been nominated to fill the vacancies, and the status of the nomination. The entries are listed in order of the date that a replacement was nominated to fill the vacancy.
Confirmation of judicial nominees has been a very slow process during this Congress. While October 2011 saw a total of 15 judicial nominees confirmed, none of the confirmations included nominees to fill the seats on the list below. While four of the nominees have been reported out of committee, and two more nominees are scheduled for committee hearings this week, none of the nominees are currently scheduled for a confirmation vote on the Senate floor, and two vacant benches are still without nominees.1 We will update this chart periodically as the nomination process moves forward for various nominees.
1 See http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=9b6937d5e931a0b792d258d9b32603b8
Contact Information
If you have any questions regarding this alert, please contact:
| Michael Simons msimons@akingump.com 512.499.6253 Austin |
Sanford E. Warren, Jr. swarren@akingump.com 214.969.2877 Dallas |