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New ABA President Speaks Out on Judiciary
The ABA's House of Delegates will be voting on recommendations to improve the federal process by encouraging bipartisan consultations on vacancies and nominees
Legal Times
August 11, 2008
American Bar Association President-Elect Thomas Wells Jr.
Image:Dee Moore
The incoming president of the American Bar Association called for improvements in the way both federal and state judges are selected. Birmingham, Alabama lawyer H. Thomas Wells Jr., partner at Maynard, Cooper & Gale, spoke Monday morning at a news conference at the ABA's annual meeting in New York City.
The federal judicial nomination and confirmation process has been bogged down by "lengthy partisan conflict and delay," Wells said, adding that if compared to the making of sausage, it would be "an insult to sausage makers."
The ABA's House of Delegates will be voting Monday or Tuesday on recommendations to improve the federal process by encouraging more and earlier bipartisan consultations on vacancies and possible nominees. The measures call on senators to create bipartisan commissions to recommend qualified nominees, ask presidents to consult with senators earlier in the process, and encourage judges planning to take senior status to give advance notice to reduce the number of lengthy vacancies.
Separately, Wells said the ABA stands ready to conduct the same kind of appraisals of federal judgeship nominees that it has done since the Eisenhower Administration. Most presidents have asked the ABA to rate candidates before the nomination is made, sometimes averting embarrassing picks. But the current Bush Administration locked the ABA out of the process, though the Senate Judiciary Committee has asked for the ABA rankings after the nominations are made and before confirmation. There are pluses and minuses to both approaches, Wells said, and the ABA will play whatever role the next president prefers.
At the state level, Wells announced he is convening a summit on preserving the impartiality of state courts next May in Charlotte. Wells said the influx of money into judicial campaigns, including "obscene" amounts in races in his own state of Alabama, have already damaged the public perception of courts' fairness. He noted the ABA has joined in asking the Supreme Court to grant review in a West Virginia case involving a state Supreme Court judge who refused to recuse himself from a case in which a $3 million campaign donor was a party. Legal Times reported on the case, Caperton v. Massey Coal Company, this week.
Wells also announced initiatives to enlist lawyers in helping the fall elections run smoothly and fairly, and to help military service members resolve civil legal issues for free. The ABA has launched a new Web site with election law resources for all 50 states, Wells said.
First reported in The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times
