SEATTLE — Two federal prosecutors, two King County Superior Court judges and a partner in a major law firm have made the short list for openings on the federal bench in Seattle.
Three U.S. District judges for western Washington — Robert Lasnik, Marsha Pechman and James Robart — are taking senior status this year, which is a sort of semi-retirement for the lifetime appointees and creates a vacancy on the bench.
A judicial selection committee appointed by U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, as well as Republican Rep. Dave Reichert, vetted potential nominees. The committee picked King County Superior Court Judges Beth Andrus and Roger Rogoff; assistant U.S. attorneys Tessa Gorman and Michael Diaz; and Kathleen O’Sullivan, a partner at the law firm Perkins Coie.
The senators’ offices declined to say whether they are still reviewing the names or whether the names have already been sent to the White House, and it is unclear how soon any nominations might be made. The judges must be confirmed by the Senate.
Having three of the five active federal judges in Seattle leave within the next six months represents a major turnover. In addition to the Seattle judges, the Western District of Washington includes two judges in Tacoma and six senior judges.
Lasnik and Pechman are each President Bill Clinton appointees who turn 65 within a few weeks. Robart, 68, was appointed by President George W. Bush.
Among those on the short list, Andrus has been a King County Superior Court judge since 2010, when she was appointed to an open seat by then-Gov. Chris Gregoire. She previously was a partner at the firm of Skellenger Bender, where she specialized in commercial, employment, intellectual property and construction law.
Rogoff served as a King County and federal prosecutor for two decades, handling sexual assault, child pornography and fraud cases, before he was appointed a King County Superior Court judge in 2013.
Gorman is the chief of the criminal division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle, where she has worked since 2001. Among her notable cases was a 10-week racketeering trial in 2007 that dismantled the Spokane chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle organization. Diaz has been her colleague at the U.S. Attorney’s Office since 2008, and since 2011 he has been the coordinator of the office’s civil rights program. He has been the office’s lead attorney on the Justice Department case that forced widespread reforms of the Seattle Police Department.
O’Sullivan co-chairs the appellate practice at Perkins Coie, which she joined as a summer associate 20 years ago. She has handled cases in the aviation, banking, biotechnology and software sectors, among others, and has defended clients facing class-action lawsuits involving parallel state and federal investigations.
“All I can say is I am so honored to be considered,” O’Sullivan said.
The senators and Reichert announced last summer that the selection committee, made up of three Republicans and three Democrats, would be vetting potential nominees. The bipartisan process, long used in the district, is designed to ease any nominee’s path toward confirmation.
The Democrats on the committee were former U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan, longtime defense lawyer John Wolfe and Ian Warner, a business lawyer who is on the monitoring team for the Seattle Police Department’s reform agreement with the Justice Department. The Republicans were former U.S. Attorney Mike McKay, former state Attorney General Rob McKenna and former Weyerhaeuser executive Mack Hogans.
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