Tuesday, October 15, 2002
Page 3
Bush Nominates Cormac Carney to U.S. District Court
By a MetNews Staff Writer
President Bush has nominated Orange Superior Court Judge—and former UCLA football star—Cormac J. Carney to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Carney was nominated late Thursday. If confirmed, he would succeed Carlos Moreno, who was appointed last year to the California Supreme Court.
The 43-year-old jurist was appointed to the Orange Superior Court last year by Gov. Gray Davis and sits at the North Justice Center in Fullerton. He was previously a business litigator and partner in the Newport Beach office of O’Melveny & Meyers, where he focused on real estate, partnership, lender liability, environmental, intellectual property and insurance coverage disputes.
Before joining O’Melveny & Meyers, Carney was an associate with Latham & Watkins for four years.
At UCLA, he was an All-American wide receiver. He was an Academic All-American in 1981 and 1982, the first Bruin football player to win the honor twice, and was named one of the NCAA’s top eight student athletes for 1982-83.
He played one season with the Memphis Showboats of the United States Football League, then went to Harvard Law School on an NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship.
The Moreno seat is one of four current vacancies in the district. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge R. Gary Klausner was approved last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee to fill one of them, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge S. James Otero is awaiting a hearing for another, and no nomination has been made to fill the last one.
Carney’s nomination was one of four judicial selections sent to the Senate Thursday.
Judge John Adams of Akron was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. Adams, who sits on the Summit County Court of Common Pleas, is a former prosecutor and was in private practice before being appointed to his present office.
J. Daniel Breen, magistrate judge at Jackson, was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee.
Thomas A. Varlan, a litigator, labor lawyer, and lobbyist from Knoxville, was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. After practicing with a large Atlanta firm, he headed the city of Knoxville’s Law Department for 10 years before joining his current firm.
Copyright 2002, Metropolitan News Company