Broward Circuit Judge Anuraag “Raag” Singhal. Photo: J. Albert Diaz/ALM

The president nominated Anuraag “Raag” Singhal to be a district judge for the Southern District of Florida among a host of judicial picks.

Singhal, a Broward circuit judge, tapped by then-Gov. Rick Scott in 2011 to become the county’s first Asian-American judge.

Singhal, who is of Indian descent, told the Daily Business Review in a 2013 profile that he had been expected to follow the career path laid out by his father, an Exxon research scientist.

Singhal even went to college on a chemical engineering scholarship, but two years into his studies, he quit chemistry and followed his heart.

“I wanted to be a lawyer, I would say, since junior high,” he said. “In fact I remember when I was in ninth grade, one of my friends got in trouble in English class, and I was explaining to the teacher why he shouldn’t have gotten in trouble. And I still remember her saying, ‘What are you, his lawyer? You should go to law school.’ ”

After graduating from Wake Forest University School of Law, he joined an insurance defense firm, then the Broward state attorney’s office. After more than three years on the prosecution side, Singhal opened his own criminal defense practice, where his clients included serial killer Aileen Wuornos as she awaited execution and a cop killer who received a jury recommendation of life in prison instead of death.

In 2005, Singhal applied for a newly created circuit court seat. The Judicial Nominating Committee sent his name to then-Gov. Jeb Bush, but he wasn’t selected. That happened 16 more times under Bush and then Gov. Charlie Crist. The 18th time his name went up as a finalist, Scott picked Singhal in 2011.

He told the DBR he was both proud and guarded about his being the first Asian-American on the Broward court.

“ I prefer to be viewed as an appointee who was qualified and is doing a really good job. I think affirmative action causes a lot of problems. I think that if you put somebody who is in a position because they’re a minority and then they fail, it makes it harder for qualified minorities who have gotten that position and for others to get that position later,” he said.

“The reason that I do like the Asian American designation is that most Asian American kids — it’s changing now — but most are still encouraged: science, science, science. And I really would like Asian American kids, if they could see that this judge was appointed, to say, ‘I’d like to go into law.’ I think that is something really positive. It opens up a whole different world of possibilities.”

On the bench, Singhal made headlines last year with his rulings surrounding Broward County elections supervisor Brenda Snipes. He found Snipes — a target of many Republicans — violated federal and state law by too quickly destroying ballots from a 2016 congressional election.

Other nominees

In a batch of other judicial nominations Wednesday, the president also proposed Steven Menashi, an ex-Kirkland & Ellis partner who is serving as a special assistant to the president, for a spot on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Menashi joined the White House in 2018 after a stint as acting general counsel for the Education Department. He earned a salary of $145,000 during his time at the White House. Before joining the federal government, Menashi taught at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and clerked for Justice Samuel Alito.

 

Sarah Pitlyk was nominated for a seat in the Eastern District of Missouri. Pitlyk was a staunch advocate for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whom she clerked for on the D.C. Circuit, during his confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Pitlyk is a special counsel at the Thomas More Society, a conservative firm based in Chicago known for advocating for pro-life causes.

Richard E. Meyers II was nominated for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The former federal prosecutor and University of North Carolina law professor’s nomination brings to a close the controversy over previous nominee Thomas Farr, who was initially tapped for the long-vacant spot.

 

Jodi Dishman was picked for a district judge for the Western District of Oklahoma. She is a shareholder at McAfee & Taft in Oklahoma City and also worked in the San Antonio office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.

Karen Marston was nominated to be a district judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She is an assistant U.S. attorney, leading the narcotics and organized crime section.

 

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