The Los Angeles County Bar Association Appellate Courts Section Presents Advise & Consent: A Primer to the Federal Judicial Appointment Process Wednesday, October 28, 2020 Program - 12:00 - 1:30 PM Zoom Webinar CLE Credit: 1.5 Hours Credit (including Appellate Courts Specialization) Provider #36 The Los Angeles County Bar Association is a State Bar of California approved MCLE provider. The Los Angles County Bar Association certifies that this activity has been approved for MCLE credit by the State Bar of California. PANELIST BIOS Judge Kenneth Lee (Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals) Kenneth Kiyul Lee is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The U.S. Senate confirmed him on May 15, 2019, making him the nation’s first Article III judge born in the Republic of Korea. Prior to his appointment, Judge Lee was a partner at the law firm of Jenner & Block in Los Angeles, where he handled a wide variety of complex litigation matters and had a robust pro bono practice. Judge Lee previously served as an Associate Counsel to President George W. Bush and as Special Counsel to Senator Arlen Specter, then-chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He started his legal career as an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York. Judge Lee is a 2000 magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School and a 1997 summa cum laude graduate of Cornell University. He clerked for Judge Emilio M. Garza of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 2000 to 2001. Judge Leslie Southwick (Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals) Leslie Southwick was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in October 2007. His chambers are in Jackson, Mississippi. Southwick was born in Edinburg, Texas, graduated from Rice University (B.A. 1972), and from the University of Texas (J.D. 1975). He clerked for Presiding Judge John F. Onion, Jr., of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and then for Judge Charles Clark of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Jackson, Mississippi. From 1977-1989, he was with the Jackson law firm of Brunini, Grantham, Grower and Hewes. In Aug. 1989, Southwick became a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, serving until Jan. 1993. Southwick was elected in 1994 to the Mississippi Court of Appeals, where he served from January 1995 through December 2006. During the 1994 campaign, he walked 250 miles along the principal south-north and west-east highways in his district, and won anyway. His walking for the Supreme Court in 1996 did not gain him similar success. Southwick, at the time a JAG and a lieutenant colonel in the Mississippi National Guard, was mobilized in August 2004 and served on active duty with the Army in Iraq for all of 2005. He is married to the former Sharon Polasek of Houston, Texas, and they have two adult children, Philip and Cathy, and five grandchildren. Southwick’s memoir on his experiences in being selected and confirmed to the Fifth Circuit was published by the University Press of Mississippi, entitled The Nominee: A Political and Spiritual Journey (2014). He earlier wrote a book on the defeated major party nominees for president and vice president – Presidential Also-Rans & Running Mates, 1788-1996 (1998). It appeared for a long time that any book he wrote on his confirmation would also be about an also-ran. Southwick also collaborated with Professor Tessa Dysart on a third edition of the late Ruggero Aldisert’s Winning on Appeal (2017). Judge Joshua Wolson (U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania) Judge Joshua D. Wolson was nominated to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in May 2018. He was renominated in May 2019, was confirmed by the Senate on May 2, 2019, and received his commission on May 28, 2019. Judge Wolson earned his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating from law school, he served as a law clerk for Hon. Jan E. DuBois of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He then maintained a commercial litigation practice, including antitrust, RICO, intellectual property, class action, First Amendment, and commerical contract disputes, first as an associate with Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., and then as a partner with Dilworth Paxson in Philadelphia. Judge William Jung (U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida) Judge William Jung is a judge on the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Jung was born in 1958 in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. He received a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, in 1980 from Vanderbilt University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his J.D., summa cum laude, in 1983 from the University of Illinois College of Law, where he was editor in chief of the Illinois Law Review, Order of the Coif, and class valedictorian. He began his career as a law clerk to Judge Gerald Tjoflat of the Eleventh Circuit Court, and then as a clerk for Associate Justice William Rehnquist of the Supreme Court. He became a member of the Florida Bar in 1983 with the highest score in the First Appellate District, and after his clerkships became an associate at Carlton Fields Jorden Burt, P.A. He then served as an Assistant US Attorney for six years in both the Southern and Middle Districts of Florida. Thereafter, he co-founded a law firm, Jung & Sisco, P.A., which specialized in white-collar criminal defense and complex civil litigation. Jung has published approximately 30 articles in legal publications. President George W. Bush nominated Jung on July 10, 2008 for a seat in the Middle District of Florida, but no action was taken on his nomination and it expired with the end of the 110th Congress. On April 28, 2016, President Obama nominated Jung to the same seat, but the nomination expired with the end of the 114th Congress. President Trump nominated Jung in 2017 to the same seat, and his nomination was confirmed on September 10, 2018. Gregg Nunziata, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP [D.C.] (Moderator) Gregg Nunziata advises clients on matters at the intersection of law, business, public policy and strategic communications. He counsels businesses— including those involved in high-profile litigation and company-defining transactions—on how they may potentially be affected by shifts in public policy, and guides clients on legislative issues and in response to government inquiries. Gregg served as general counsel and a senior domestic policy advisor to Sen. Marco Rubio, including during the senator’s presidential and re-election campaigns. In addition, he provided ethics and compliance guidance to the senator and his staff. Gregg previously held senior Republican counsel positions on Capitol Hill. There he handled a range of domestic policy issues, with a focus on matters related to legal policy, such as immigration, healthcare and intellectual property. One of his responsibilities was advising Senate Republicans during the passage of the America Invents Act. A former chief nominations counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Gregg played a key strategic role in the confirmation proceedings for scores of federal judges and executive branch appointees, including Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Samuel Alito and Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Gregg also served as the founder of a public policy tech startup and as senior director of a healthcare consulting firm. Earlier in his career, Gregg worked at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, where he was special assistant to future U.S. Secretary of Labor, then Assistant Attorney General, R. Alexander Acosta. Gregg was previously a litigator at an international law firm, where his clients included companies in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and tobacco industries. He also served as a judicial clerk in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. How the SCOTUS Nomination Process Could Play Out in the Senate In recent decades, the process has taken two to three months. The election is 41 days away. https://thedispatch.com/p/how-the-scotus-nomination-process Gregg T Nunziata Sep 23 28 35 As if a pandemic, economic crisis, social unrest, and political polarization didn’t make our upcoming election fraught enough, we’re adding to that mix what is universally anticipated to be one of the most intense Supreme Court confirmation battles the country has ever seen. The opening skirmishes of this battle have, of all things, focused on the Senate calendar, precedent, and practice. There is no question that a Supreme Court confirmation process conducted in the heat of a presidential contest presents unusual circumstances. The Senate traditionally slows the pace of judicial confirmations in election years and, historically, confirms few nominees after the August recess. Supreme Court vacancies occur rarely enough that the data set practically invites “p-hacking”—the conjuring of a “rule” that conveniently both fits the data and supports a desired outcome. In truth, when a Supreme Court vacancy occurs, the president has the power to nominate, and the Senate to confirm, a new justice. A case can be made that prudent, enlightened leaders would not seek to fill the vacancy during an election season, especially in divisive times like ours. Whatever the case, we do not live in an age—or enjoy a politics—marked by prudence. President Trump won the election, in large part, thanks to his commitment to appoint judicial conservatives, originalists, and textualists to the bench.