The VLW Blog

President Bush has nominated Washington commercial litigation attorney Anthony J. Trenga to the U.S. District Court judgeship vacated by the resignation of Walter D. Kelley.

Trenga is a partner in DC’s Miller & Chevalier. An Alexandria resident, he has served on the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board and has been a member of the VSB Clients’ Protection Fund and the bar’s CLE Committee, according to his Web site biography. He currently serves on the Panel of Arbitrators for the National Association of Securities Dealers.

U.S. Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Jim Webb, D-Va., issued a joint news release praising Trenga’s nomination.

By Peter Vieth

The US Senate has confirmed Portsmouth chief circuit Judge Mark Davis for a federal district judgeship in Alexandria, according to the AP via WVEC. According to the report, Davis once worked as a lawyer for RMS Titanic Incorporated, the firm that salvaged artifacts from the wreck of the ill-fated cruise ship and is still fighting in court for compensation.

By Peter Vieth

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday unanimously reported to the full Senate the nomination of Virginia Supreme Court Justice Steven Agee to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) proclaimed, “The Senate is now poised to confirm Agee before the Memorial Day recess, breaking through years of delay….”

Leahy did not stop there. Possibly feeling the heat from recent, mostly-partisan criticism about delays in consideration of President Bush’s nominees, Leahy went on at length in a news release and statement to explain his view of the long and contentious federal bench battles, harking back to the days when North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms blocked President Clinton’s 4th Circuit nominees.

“The efforts and years wasted on President Bush’s controversial nominations followed in the wake of the Republican Senate majority’s refusal to consider any of President Clinton’s Fourth Circuit nominees,” Leahy said.

President Bush nominated federal district Judge Glen E. Conrad of Roanoke to a seat on the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday. The Associated Press has the story.

Conrad has been a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia since 2003. From 1976 to 2003, he was a federal magistrate judge in the Western District’s Abingdon, Charlottesville and Roanoke divisions.

Conrad, 58, a native of Radford, Va., is a 1974 graduate of the College of William and Mary and the Marshall Wythe School of Law.

Conrad was one of several people that Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Jim Webb, D-Va., recommended to Bush. With the Conrad nomination, the president has five nominees pending for the five vacant seats on the 4th Circuit.

Apparently, there are a lot of cases coming out of the Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, because the federal judges are calling for back-up in this order posted on the Western District’s website.

The nomination of Virginia Supreme Court Justice Steven Agee to the federal appeals bench has turned into a political football as U.S. senators wage their long-running battle over judicial nominations. Despite the wrangling, however, there is no suggestion that the prospects for Agee’s confirmation are threatened.

The skirmishing plays out against a background of political conflict over President Bush’s appointees to the federal courts. Accused of foot-dragging on confirmations, the Democratic leadership of the Senate Judiciary Committee promised to get three appeals court judges confirmed by Memorial Day. Now, Republicans are crying foul because it looks like the Democrats are cherry-picking which nominees they will confirm.

Even though he has Republican roots, Agee is considered one of the Democrats’ “cherries,” since he was approved by both Virginia senators, Democrat Jim Webb and Republican John Warner.

Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy last week announced a confirmation hearing for Agee to take place Thursday at 2:15 p.m. Republicans immediately grumbled about the fact that two other nominees to the Fourth Circuit have been waiting for many months without any hearings scheduled.

Those other nominees are U.S. District Judge Robert Conrad of Charlotte (a UVA Law grad who practiced for three years in Charlottesville) and South Carolina lawyer Steve Matthews.

With the delays in nominations and confirmations, the Fourth Circuit bench remains one third vacant.

President Bush yesterday nominated Virginia Supreme Court Justice G. Steven Agee to a seat on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Agee would take the seat vacated by Judge J. Michael Luttig in 2006 when he left the court to take a job a Boeing.

Bush previously nominated Richmond lawyer E. Duncan Getchell for the post, but Getchell withdrew his name earlier this year when it became clear the nomination would not succeed.

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, both of Virginia’s U.S. senators, John Warner and Jim Webb, hailed the Agee nomination.

Judge Walter D. Kelley Jr. will leave the federal district bench less than four years after he was appointed to the court.

In a letter to President Bush today, Kelley said May 16 will be his last day as a judge. “I have reluctantly concluded that my professional interests and the needs of my family are best met in the private sector. I therefore have accepted a partnership in the international law firm of Jones Day, resident in its Washington, D.C. office.”

The letter followed calls from Virginia Lawyers Weekly and other reporters about comments he made last week at a hearing in a patent case in Norfolk. Kelley told the attorneys before him that he has been offered a partnership in the Washington office of Jones Day and might well be leaving the bench shortly. The remarks were in the context of a case scheduled for trial in April, and he mentioned that it might be the last case he will preside over.

Asked earlier today about the remarks, Kelley acknowledged that he had made them but would not elaborate on them. He said he had not written to the White House announcing his resignation and added that any comment before he does so would be premature. Within a few hours of that response, he e-mailed a copy of the correspondence to the White House.

A native of Norfolk and a graduate of Washington and Lee University and its law school, Kelley was nominated in October 2003 to the seat vacated by Judge Henry C. Morgan. The Senate confirmed him in June 2004, and he received his commission two months later.

At the time, he was a partner in the Norfolk office of Troutman Sanders LLP. He specialized in commercial litigation, with particular emphasis on intellectual property and antitrust cases.

In his letter to the President, Kelley said, “Serving the citizens of this country as a United States District Judge has been the greatest honor of my professional career. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.”

However, as a judge, he earned a fraction of his income as a litigator, and he has presided over dockets heavy on drug and firearm cases with relatively little in the way of the business disputes he handled as an attorney. His assistant said he would not say anything today beyond what was in the letter.