The Conference on Public Service and the Law

at the University of Virginia School of Law

Legislative and Political

Reforming Federal Judicial Appointments
Over the past two decades, the process of nominating and confirming federal judges has grown more divisive, ideological, partisan and inefficient. Following six years of Republicans delaying and refusing to confirm many Clinton judicial nominees, Senate Democrats have given similar treatment to Bush judicial nominees. Regardless of which party controls the Senate and the White House, there is no easy solution in sight to the partisan circus that the nomination and confirmation process has become. This panel will consider various proposals to reform the federal judicial nomination and confirmation process, ranging from informal efforts to compromise and reach consensus to more radical structural reforms such as ending life tenure.

Dahlia Lithwick, Moderator
Slate Senior Editor
Dahlia Lithwick is a Senior Editor at Slate. She received a 2001 Online Journalism Award for her Supreme Court Dispatches. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, Commentary, The Washington Post, and The American Lawyer. She is co-author of Me vs. Everybody published in 2003 by Workman Publishing.

Nan Aron
Founder and President, Alliance for Justice
Nan Aron founded the Alliance for Justice in 1979 to bring the resources and talents of the public interest community to address critical issues affecting the advocacy community. Since its inception, Nan has served as president of this national association of public interest and civil rights organizations. In 1985, she founded its Judicial Selection Project, which monitors the appointment process for Supreme Court Justices and lower federal court judges. Nan is a nationally recognized expert on public interest law, the federal judiciary, and citizen participation in policy formulation, and she is the author of Liberty and Justice for All: Public Interest Law in the 1980s and Beyond. Prior to the Alliance, Nan was a staff attorney for the ACLU's National Prison Project where she challenged conditions in state prison systems through lawsuits in federal and state courts. As a trial attorney for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, she litigated race and sex discrimination cases against companies and unions in federal and district courts.

Lillian BeVier
Professor, University of Virginia School of Law; Member, Committee for Justice
Lillian R. BeVier is the John S. Shannon Distinguished Professor of Law and Class of 1963 Research Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. She received her B.A. from Smith College in 1961 and graduated from Stanford Law School in 1965. Professor BeVier has taught constitutional law (with special emphasis on First Amendment issues), intellectual property (trademark, copyright), real property, and torts since coming to Virginia in 1973. She received Distinguished Faculty Award from the Virginia Women Attorney's Association Foundation in 1992 and was elected to the Raven Society. She serves on the national Board of Visitors of the Federalist Society and is a member of the Committee for Justice.

Neil MacBride
Chief Counsel to Senator Biden, Senate Judiciary Committee
Neil MacBride currently serves as Chief Counsel to Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-Delaware), a senior Democrat on the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. MacBride also currently serves as Chief Democratic Counsel and Staff Director of the Senate Subcommittee on Crime, Corrections, and Victims' Rights. Mr. MacBride is a 1987 graduate of Houghton College (Houghton, New York) and a 1992 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law. Following graduation from the Law School, Mr. MacBride clerked for the Honorable Henry Coke Morgan, Jr. (U.S. District Judge, Eastern District of Virginia). At the end of his clerkship, Mr. MacBride went to work for the Washington, D.C., law firm of Verner, Liipfert, Berhard, McPherson, & Hand. In 1997, Mr. MacBride became Assistant United States Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. In 2001, Mr. MacBride left the U.S. Attorney's Office to take his current position as Chief Counsel to Senator Biden. In his current position, Mr. MacBride has served as the principal advisor to Senator Biden on issues involving crime and drug policy, counter-terrorism, intelligence, white-collar and fraud crimes, intellectual property, violence against women, the U.S. Constitution, child pornography, habeas corpus and oversight of the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Drug Enforcement Agency. Mr. MacBride also serves a key advisor to Senator Biden on judicial nominations before the Judiciary Committee.

Daniel J. Bryant
Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Policy
Mr. Daniel J. Bryant was confirmed as Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy by the United States Senate on October 3, 2003. In this capacity, Mr. Bryant is responsible for planning, developing and coordinating the implementation of major legal policy initiatives of high priority to the Department and to the Administration, as well providing legal advice and assistance to the Attorney General and to the Department Components. The Office is responsible for assisting the Attorney General and the White House in connection with federal judicial nominations and confirmations. From January until June, 2003, Mr. Bryant served as Counsel and Senior Advisor to the Attorney General. Previously, Mr. Bryant served as Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs. As Assistant Attorney General, Mr. Bryant was responsible for, among other things, coordinating all activities in connection with the Senate confirmation process for federal judges and Department nominees. Other previous positions held by Mr. Bryant include Majority Chief Counsel on the House Judiciary Committee's Crime Subcommittee and service in the U.S. Senate on the Government Affairs Committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, focusing on domestic and international organized crime. Mr. Bryant received his bachelor and juris doctor degrees from American University, Washington, D.C., and his master's degree from Oxford University, Oxford, England.