Kathleen Lane has recently been nominated by Sen. Steve Daines to serve as a federal trial judge in the United States District Court for the District of Montana.\u00a0 Lane is not qualified to sit as a federal trial judge in Montana.
Lane graduated from law school just more than eight years ago.\u00a0 She has practiced law in various other states for fewer than six years, and practiced law in Montana for fewer than two.\u00a0 She cites many different jobs held in those eight years, but missing from her public list of accomplishments is any working trial experience in a federal courtroom whatsoever \u2013 or any courtroom, for that matter.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The American Bar Association recommends that a nominee for appointment to the federal trial court possess at least 12 years of practice and have \u201csubstantial courtroom and trial experience as a lawyer.\u201d\u00a0 Lane wholly fails to meet either requisite.\u00a0 Daines\u2019 nomination of a person who cannot meet even the most minimum requirement of this important position is a stunning affront to the stature of the federal bench.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
A trial in federal court is a complicated and demanding process.\u00a0 A newly appointed trial judge should \u2013 through prior experience \u2013 be wholly conversant with the complexities of jury selection, the rules of evidence and the calling and qualification of witnesses, with objections and challenges to testimony that call for reflexive rulings, and with the intricacies of the voir dire of witnesses, sidebars and every other facet of trial work.\u00a0 These are critical aspects of trial work that should be learned before one is honored with a nomination to serve as a federal trial judge.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the former United States Attorney for the District of Montana and having practiced as a trial lawyer in federal courts for nearly 50 years, I know how important it is that our clients stand before a federal trial judge who is both objective and intimately familiar with the rigors and demands of a trial practice. \u00a0My opinion has nothing to do with partisanship, but everything to do with the time-honored qualifications to be a federal court trial judge.\u00a0 There are many experienced and respected attorneys in Montana who would meet and exceed these qualifications and could honorably serve the public as a federal trial judge.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Sen. Daines, you owe it to everyone in Montana to nominate a person who has the trial experience and enjoys the respect that this position demands.\u00a0 Please put politics aside, withdraw Lane\u2019s nomination and recommend instead a Montana lawyer who has truly and honorably earned appointment to the federal bench.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kathleen Lane has recently been nominated by Sen. Steve Daines to serve as a federal trial judge in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,12857,245074,245075,245076,3,150280,4767,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-550872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-experience","tag-federal-judiciary","tag-katie-lane","tag-michael-cotter","tag-news","tag-qualifications","tag-steve-daines","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}