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From [e-mail]  Sat Aug  7 22:08:27 1993
To: [e-mail]
Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1993 21:39-0400
From: The White House <[e-mail]>
Subject: President Names District & Circuit Court Judges  8/7/93

                         THE WHITE HOUSE

                  Office of the Press Secretary


For Immediate Release                             August 7, 1993

        PRESIDENT NAMES CIRCUIT AND DISTRICT COURT JUDGES

     President Clinton yesterday nominated three U.S. Court of
Appeals judges:  Martha Craig Daughtrey for the 6th Circuit,
Pierre N. Leval for the 2nd Circuit, and M. Blane Michael for the
4th Circuit.  In addition, the President also announced the
nominations of U.S. District Court Judges for Maryland, South
Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, the Eastern District of New York,
the Eastern District of Virginia, the Eastern District of
Kentucky, and the Eastern District of Arkansas.

     "There are few things that I will do that will have more
lasting effect then the appointment of federal judges," said the
President.  "Along with Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court,
and the many other judges yet to be named, this outstanding group
of jurists will change the face of the Federal courts and help
move our country forward."

     The President has now made 14 judicial nominations, compared
to 8 by President Bush at this point in his presidency, 9 by
President Reagan, and 10 by President Carter.

     Biographies of the three Circuit Court judges are attached.
The District Court Judges nominated yesterday are:

Leonie M. Brinkema, Eastern District of Virginia -- Brinkema, 48,
has been a U.S. Magistrate in Alexandria since 1985.  She
previously worked briefly in private practice, and spent eight
years in the Department of Justice as an Assistant U.S. Attorney
and a Trial Attorney in the Department's Public Integrity
Section.  She spent a year as head of the Criminal Division in
the Alexandria U.S. Attorney's Office.  She is an honors graduate
of Cornell Law School.

Deborah Chasanow, District of Maryland -- Chasanow, 45, has been
a U.S. Magistrate since 1987.  For the preceding twelve years,
she was an Assistant Attorney General in the State of Maryland,
ending her career as Chief of the state's Criminal Appeals
Division.  In that role, she was the principal legal advisor to
State's Attorneys throughout Maryland.  Chasanow is a graduate of
the Stanford Law School.
                              (more)

Jennifer Coffman, Eastern District of Kentucky -- Coffman, 45,
has been a partner in firms specializing in employment
discrimination law since 1982, litigating both sides of such
issues.  She was appointed by the District Court judges as one of
three lawyers on the Civil Justice Reform Act Advisory Committee
for the state.  Coffman, who would be the first woman ever to
serve on the District Court in Kentucky, is an honors graduate of
the University of Kentucky Law School.

Peter Messitte, District of Maryland -- Messitte, 51, has been a
state trial court judge in Maryland since 1985.  For 16 years
before coming to the bench, he had a civil litigation practice
and has had extensive trial experience.  He is a graduate of the
University of Chicago School of Law.

Lawrence Piersol, District of South Dakota -- Piersol, 53, is a
partner at Davenport, Evans, Hurwitz & Smith, a prominent Sioux
Falls law firm where he specializes in civil litigation.
Piersol, a veteran of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate Corps, is a
graduate of the University of South Dakota Law School.

Thomas Shanahan, District of Nebraska -- Shanahan, 58, has been a
Supreme Court Judge in Nebraska since 1983.  He was previously a
partner in the firm of McGinley, Lane, Mueller & Shanahan.
Shanahan holds a law degree from the Georgetown University Law
Center.

David Trager, Eastern District of New York -- Trager, 53, is the
Dean of the Brooklyn Law School and a former U.S. Attorney.  He
also has served as Chairman of the Mayor's Committee on the
Judiciary from 1981-89, and the Temporary State Committee on
Investigations from 1983-90.  He is a graduate of Harvard Law
School.

Martha Vazquez, District of New Mexico -- Vazquez, 40, is a
partner at Jones, Snead, Wertheim, Rodriguez & Wentworth, a
criminal defense and plaintiffs' litigation firm in Santa Fe.
She previously served for three years as a public defender after
graduating from Notre Dame Law School.  Vazquez would be the
first woman ever to serve on the District Court of New Mexico.

Alex Williams, District of Maryland -- Williams, 45, is the
State's Attorney for Prince George's County, a position he was
first elected to in 1986.  For the previous decade, he had been
Special Counsel to the Board of Education.  He previously worked
as a public defender, and has taught on an adjunct basis at
Howard University Law School, from which he also graduated.

William Wilson, Eastern District of Arkansas -- Wilson, 54, is
the senior partner in Wilson, Engstrom, Corum & Dudley, a Little
Rock law firm, and a former president of the State Bar.  A former
legal officer in the U.S. Navy, he holds a J.D. from Vanderbilt
University Law School.
                             #  #  #


                      MARTHA CRAIG DAUGHTREY

              Nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals
                      for the Sixth Circuit

     Martha Craig Daughtrey is the sole woman justice on the
Tennessee Supreme Court.  Daughtrey, 51, overcame discrimination
against women in the legal profession and has established herself
as a respected and independent justice.  In activities both on
and off the bench, she has been a participant on the national
level in shaping the future of the judiciary and the legal
profession.

     Born Martha Craig Kerkow in 1942, she grew up in Covington,
Kentucky.  She enrolled in Nashville's Vanderbilt University in
1961.  She earned her Bachelor's degree in 1965, and she placed
sixth in her graduating class at Vanderbilt Law School in 1968.

     As a woman lawyer, judge and justice in Tennessee, Daughtrey
has had to break a path for other women to follow.  She found few
opportunities available to her as a young woman lawyer in 1968,
despite her distinguished record at Vanderbilt Law School.

     Unable to secure a job at any law firm in Nashville,
Daughtrey was ultimately hired as an Assistant U.S. Attorney
under Gilbert S. Merritt (who now serves as the Chief Justice of
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit).  She was the
first female prosecutor in Tennessee.  A year later, she was
hired to work as an assistant prosecutor in Davidson County,
Tennessee, where she continued to dispel widespread skepticism
from the male-dominated bar to earn a reputation as one of the
state's most effective prosecutors.

     In 1972, Daughtrey became an assistant professor at
Vanderbilt Law School, one of the first female tenure track
professors at that school.  In 1975 she was appointed to serve on
the State Court of Criminal Appeals by then-Governor Ray Blanton.
And again, as with most positions Daughtrey held throughout her
career, it was another first: Daughtrey was the first woman to
serve as a state court judge in Tennessee.

     Daughtrey served on the State Court of Criminal Appeals for
fifteen years.  In early 1990, she was appointed by Governor Ned
McWherter to fill a vacancy on the Tennessee Supreme Court.
After completing the term of a justice who resigned, Daughtrey
was elected to an eight-year term in November of that year.


     In addition to her official work as a prosecutor, a
professor and a judge, Daughtrey has been active in the legal
profession. She has placed most of her emphasis on promoting
women and minorities in the judiciary and in the profession
generally, and on court reform.  Daughtrey has been associated
with many legal organizations, including the National Association
of Women Judges, where she has served as the group's president.
She has also chaired the 7,500-member Judicial Administration
Division of the American Bar Association.

     Daughtrey has received a number of important awards.  Among
other honors, she was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young
Women of America in 1976.  She was awarded the title of Woman of
the Year by the National Women Executives, the Women
Professionals International and Nashville Business and
Professional Women.

     Daughtrey is married to Larry G. Daughtrey, who is a
columnist for The Nashville Tennessean.  The couple has one
daughter, who currently attends Vanderbilt Law School.

     If confirmed, Daughtrey will become just the third woman
ever to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Based in Cincinnati, the appellate court judges cases from
Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan.

                         PIERRE N. LEVAL

              Nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals
                      for the Second Circuit

     Pierre Nelson Leval is serving in his 17th year as a federal
judge in the Southern District of New York.  Appointed by
President Carter in 1977, Leval, 56, has earned a reputation in
the legal profession for his strength of his intellect and the
fairness of his deliberations.  His reputation is such that a
notable legal magazine rated him a "First-Rate Centrist"
candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court.

     Leval was born in New York City in 1936.  His father, a
grain merchant, was an immigrant from the French-speaking region
of Switzerland.

     Leval studied at Harvard College, majoring in art history
and graduating with honors in 1959.  After spending six months as
an enlisted man in the Army, he attended Harvard Law School.
Elected to the Law Review, Leval graduated magna cum laude in
1963.

     After law school, Leval clerked for Judge Henry J. Friendly
of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  Friendly
remembered Leval as a hard-working, pleasant young man with a
good sense of humor, describing him as one of several in his
"pantheon of best clerks."

     From 1963 to 1968, Leval served as an Assistant U.S.

     He left Cleary, Gottlieb in 1975 to rejoin Morganthau in the
race for Manhattan District Attorney.  Leval managed Morganthau's
campaign, and when he won, Leval became the Chief Assistant
District Attorney.

     Two years later, Leval was named to the federal bench by
President Carter in 1977 at the age of 41, becoming one of the
youngest judges appointed to the federal bench in New York.  As a
District Court judge, he has presided over a number of
illustrious cases in the last decade, including General
Westmoreland's libel suit against CBS in 1983, and the 1987 mafia
drug trial known as the "Pizza Connection" case.

     His former employer, Robert Morganthau, has echoed the
strong public consensus about Leval, praising him as "a first-
rate lawyer and a great judge, a conscientious, hard-working man
who has served the public well."  Leval has been recognized for a
fundamental sense of fairness mixed with a profound love for the
intricacies of the law.     In 1991, American Lawyer magazine
included Leval on a short list of "First-Rate Centrist"
candidates for the Supreme Court.

     Leval is married to the former Susana Torruella, an art
historian.  The couple has one daughter.

     If confirmed, Leval will become one of 12 judges on the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which hears cases from
New York, Vermont and Connecticut.


M. BLANE MICHAEL

Nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Fourth Circuit

     M. Blane Michael, a prominent Charleston, West Virginia
attorney, has led a diverse and extensive career in both
government and private practice.  Michael, 50, has served as
Counsel to the Governor, prosecuted in both urban areas and rural
communities, and practiced law both on his own and in a large law
firm.  In addition, Michael has balanced his legal career with a
deep and abiding commitment to his family and to his community.

     Born in 1943 in Charleston, South Carolina, Michael grew up
in a small agricultural community in the Potomac highlands, in
West Virginia's eastern panhandle.

     He has distinguished himself both academically and
extracurricularly throughout his life.  A Phi Beta Kappa and
magna cum laude graduate of West Virginia University, Michael
majored in political science and was also President of the
student body.  He then attended New York University Law School,
where he was named a prestigious Root-Tilden Scholar and
graduated in 1968.

     The same year, Michael joined the Wall Street law firm
Sullivan & Cromwell as an associate.  In 1971, he left the
private sector to work as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the
Southern District of New York.

     Michael sacrificed his developing career in New York,
however, to return to West Virginia in 1972 to help care for his
ailing father.  Upon his return, he resumed his prosecutorial
work as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern
District of West Virginia.  A few years later, Michael served as
a clerk for the Honorable Robert Maxwell, the Chief Judge of the
Federal District Court for the Northern District of West
Virginia.

     During the several years he cared for his father, Michael
opened a solo practice in Petersburg, West Virginia, a rural
county seat town with a population of approximately 2,000.  His
work there included representation of local farmers as well as
juveniles assigned to him from a nearby youth detention center.

     After his father's death, Michael moved to Charleston where
he became Counsel to West Virginia Governor John Rockefeller IV
during his first four years in office.  Michael has remained
active in Democratic politics in his state.

     Since 1981, Michael has been associated with West Virginia's
largest law firm, Jackson & Kelly, where he became a partner in
1982.  He is currently a senior litigator there, handling both
trial and appellate cases.  He also concentrates in
administrative and communications law.

     Long active in bar and community activities, he has been one
of the leaders over the last five years in the effort to
promulgate new "local rules" for courts in the Southern District
of West Virginia.

     Throughout his career, Michael's reputation for integrity,
honesty, exceptional intelligence, and character has gained him
numerous admirers.  When Michael left government service in the
early 1980s, Rockefeller called him "one of the most dedicated
and hard-working people I have ever known.  Blane brings
character and good judgment to every task he undertakes."

     Michael is married to the former Mary Anne Eckert.  They
have a college-aged daughter, Cora.

     If confirmed, Michael would fill the seat recently vacated
when Judge James Sprouse took Senior Status.  He would become one
of thirteen judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit, which hears cases from West Virginia, South Carolina,
North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.

                              #####