NEWSFLASH: Unqualified Federal Judges Are... Unqualified

Maybe next time we can listen to the ABA?

The Trump administration gets a lot of flack, but it did unwittingly manage to underscore an important reality to light: after decades of shadowy financial investment, buying untold amounts of Chick-fil-A, the right-wing still  struggles to entice many competent legal minds. The charitable interpretation is that conservatism’s best and brightest are too busy getting rich running hedge funds or defense contractors to become law school nerds. The less charitable interpretation is that conservatism’s shiniest lights fell out of step with the GOP’s transformation somewhere between Cheneyism and MAGAism, leaving the cupboard relatively bare when Trump went judge shopping.

In any event, when Mitch McConnell set Trump up with an unprecedented set of jobs to fill, the administration scored a handful of admittedly admirable appointments before finding themselves reaching the bottom of the barrel for ghost hunters, anti-gay bloggers, and straight-up associates.

The ABA, in its role advising the government on the qualifications of nominees, takes a pretty lax approach. All manner of red flags are ignored if the nominee can perform the most basic tasks of a federal judge. Despite this, the organization still tagged 10 nominees as officially “not-qualified,” and watched the Senate go ahead and confirm the overwhelming majority of them.

One of these nominees was Lawrence VanDyke, a Ninth Circuit judge who cried about his ABA rating despite a fairly damning report that he was less a judiciary prospect than “arrogant, lazy, an ideologue, and lacking in knowledge of the day-to-day practice including procedural rules.” He also actively tried to dodge the layup question, “Would you be fair to people in the LGBT community?” Obviously the Senate went ahead and confirmed him.

And now we see exactly what the country got locking up another several decades with this not-yet-50-year-old:

“[S]o well known as to need no supporting citation”? Where have I heard this kind of crackerjack legal reasoning before? You know, if you’re making an accusatory statement you can go ahead and support it with “a cite” even if you don’t want to include “every cite.” And the ABA thought he was lazy!

Sponsored

But I’m really feeling bad for that poor clerk. Imagining the next big job interview:

Partner: So you clerked? How was that?
Clerk: Incredibly fulfilling. I learned so much and got to be a part of so many cases.
Partner: Like what?
Clerk: I, uh, compiled a string cite so my boss could humiliate his qualified colleagues.
Partner: *Eyebrow raise*
Clerk: But he, um, didn’t end up using it. It got bumped so he could talk about spitting in cookie jars.
Partner: Well, it was wonderful to meet you, I’m sure you can find your own way out.

Earlier: Nominee Tries To Get Away With Mealy-Mouthed Gay Rights Statement And Then Cries About Getting Called Out On It


HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Sponsored