Candidates for the federal bench in Chicago would be advised to take a look at those child-care records before sending in their applications.
The 20-page questionnaire now going out to would-be U.S. District Court judges doesn’t include the “nanny question.” But “I’m sure it will be asked,” warns Anthony Scariano, the Illinois Appellate Court judge who chairs a 23-member screening panel charged with recommending candidates for U.S. attorney, U.S. marshal and the three District Court vacancies in northern Illinois.
The panel, one of three created by Sens. Paul Simon and Carol Moseley-Braun, is up and running, and judicial hopefuls have less than a month to complete their applications. The same goes for prospective U.S. attorneys and marshals, Scariano told an Appellate Lawyers Association lunch on Friday. Interested parties should send 25 copies of a completed questionnaire to Simon’s Chicago office by April 19.
Scariano says the senators have gotten word that the Justice Department wants a new U.S. attorney as soon as possible, though he says “I don’t see how we can fill that job before summer-before late summer.”
The panel will do its work in secret, but Scariano insists that the opportunities are wide open for qualified candidates. He says he recently received a phone call from a lawyer at a big-name firm who inquired whether it would be worth his time to send in an application.
“I told him, `Your chances are as good as anyone else’s,’ ” Scariano says.
Scariano also has attempted to put some distance between the screening panel and the politically connected names that have surfaced in print. “We don’t know about any of the names that have appeared in the newspapers,” he says.
If you ask good government types to recommend potential District Court judges, the name most often heard is that of David Coar, a highly regarded federal bankruptcy judge, who doesn’t get many mentions in the gossip columns.
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We’ll see what happens.
HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT
Robert Cooley, the crooked lawyer who has been a key witness for the latest federal investigation into public corruption, was asked during his testimony Friday at the bribery trial of former Judge Thomas Maloney to demonstrate how he hauled $50,000 in payoff money from New York back to Chicago after the alleged fix of a 1981 murder trial.
He received the $50,000 in $100 bills. But prosecutors figured jurors would get the idea if he used 500 $1 bills for the demonstration.
Cooley stepped down from the witness stand and proceeded to stuff two packets of bills-$100 to a packet-into one of the inside pockets of his suitcoat, two in the other inside pocket and another in his back pants pocket.
After demonstrating there were no bulges, Cooley turned to Scott Mendeloff, an assistant U.S. attorney, and quipped: “Can I keep it?”
Jurors chuckled as Cooley handed the cash back to Mendeloff, who didn’t count it.
Of course, $500 would have been chump change for Cooley, who has admitted that on occasion his gambling losses were $200,000 to $300,000 a week.
– COMINGS AND GOINGS. What’s happening at Pope, Ballard, Shepard & Fowle? A second key partner has left in as many months, with the exit of Michael B. Fischer, the former chairman of the firm’s corporate practice, who has joined Rudnick & Wolfe. His departure follows that of Laurence J. Kline, who left to set up an estate planning boutique last month with Timothy G. Carroll and Bernard T. Wall, formerly at Winston & Strawn. Both Kline and Fischer say only that they left for better opportunities, but their former law firm reportedly is half the size it once was. Managing partner Timothy C. Klenk says the departures won’t significantly affect Pope, Ballard. . . . Karl Berolzheimer, former senior vice president and general counsel of Centel Corp., is now at Ross & Hardies. . . . Gardner, Carton & Douglas adds trial lawyer Warren von Credo Baker, also late of Winston & Strawn.
– FOOTNOTES. The Illinois Supreme Court closes out what was once a hot controversy involving former lawyer W. Jason Mitan by denying his petition for reinstatement, more than six years after it was filed. Since then, the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission has proved that Mitan’s petition was fraudulent and that he practiced law after he was disbarred in 1980. Also since then, Mitan has been sentenced to prison on federal income tax and bankruptcy fraud charges. . . . And for a change, Frank Easterbrook, the University of Chicago Law School faculty member who sits on the federal appeals court here, is not being mentioned among the possible successors to retiring Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White.