Judicial Appointments: Checks and Balances in Practice

• 3.1.2010

The federal judicial appointment process is an inter-branch power struggle from start to finish. The American public tends to focus on the President’s role in choosing judicial nominees and on the Senate’s role in approving or vetoing them after nomination, but the power sharing begins well before a nomination is made.

In an article originally published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, WilmerHale Counsel Rachel Brand, who is a member of the Defense, National Security & Government Contracts and Government & Regulatory Litigation Practice Groups, provides a practical look at how the President and Senate work together during the judicial appointment process. She witnessed this relationship as an attorney in the White House Counsel’s office at the beginning of President George W. Bush’s first term, and later as the Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy in the Justice Department, where she shepherded judicial nominees through the confirmation process.

Read the full text of the article: Judicial Appointments: Checks and Balances in Practice.