Sen. Dianne Feinstein named complex litigation partner Ray Marshall of San Francisco to a five-member panel for Northern California nominations. Sens. Christopher Dodd and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut selected Hartford institutional finance partner Daniel Papermaster for their seven-member group.
“The fact that Bingham has the distinction of having three of our partners playing a role in selecting the next U.S. Attorney, U.S. Marshal and federal judges in three major states is a real testament to the strength of our practices and to our partners’ reputations in their communities,” said Mark Robinson, co-leader of Bingham’s White Collar Defense and Business Regulation Practice Group. “These committees are doing important work that will impact their states and the nation.”
The committees will interview and evaluate potential nominees for federal posts in their respective states. The senators will then make their recommendations — based on the committees’ findings — to President Obama, who will evaluate the candidates further and submit a nomination to the Senate for confirmation hearings.
Robinson himself was vetted by such a committee and subsequently nominated by the president to be the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts in 1992.
Marshall and Papermaster join several Bingham lawyers and Bingham Consulting members who have helped evaluate candidates for top-level federal government posts in the past.
Marshall is co-leader of Bingham’s Complex Litigation Practice Group and the White Collar Defense and Business Regulation Practice Group. His five-member, bipartisan committee is responsible for screening applications, interviewing applicants and recommending finalists for the Northern District of California, one of the state’s four federal districts.
“It’s a great privilege to serve on the committee,” Marshall said. “It’s a diverse and bipartisan committee, which is important. When you are looking at the bench and positions such as U.S. Attorney and U.S. Marshal, you want to try to have as broad a group of candidates as possible, and not just in gender and ethnicity, but profile and background as well.”
Feinstein’s appointment was Marshall’s first for a congressional vetting committee. He has past experience in evaluating judicial candidates, serving as a member of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary, which recommends judicial candidates to the White House for nomination.
Papermaster is managing partner of Bingham’s Hartford office. He has long been involved in Connecticut politics and active in the community. He served as general chairman of Hartford Debate ’96, which was the first televised presidential debate ever held in New England and the first presidential debate of the 1996 campaign between President Clinton and Sen. Bob Dole.
He previously worked for Dodd and was senior adviser to Lieberman’s 2000 vice presidential campaign and legal counsel to his 2006 U.S. Senate campaign. He also was the lead negotiator for Lieberman’s Senate debates.
“We are going to help provide input for selections that are important for the people of Connecticut,” Papermaster said. “I also will have the opportunity to learn from others on the panel, including Ellen Ash Peters, the former chief justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court. I realize that it says a lot about Bingham — and is quite impressive — that Ralph and Ray have been named to similar committees in their states.”