Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals Building

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he would elevate an Alabama district judge to the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Georgia, Florida and Alabama.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Judge Andrew L. Brasher of the Middle District Alabama presumably would fill a vacancy occurring when Chief Judge Ed Carnes takes senior status. A website for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts lists Carnes' seat as a "future vacancy."

Tapped by Trump, Brasher became a district judge just six months ago. He also clerked for Judge William Pryor of the Eleventh Circuit, served as Alabama solicitor general and worked for the white-collar criminal defense practice groups in the Birmingham office of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings.

Judge Kevin Newsom of the Eleventh Circuit also worked for Bradley Arant.

The announcement came as part of the White House's latest round of nominations to fill vacancies on federal courts in New York, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Arizona, Missouri and Washington, D.C., and on the U.S. Tax Court.

Trump nominated John Cronan and Iris Lan of the U.S. Justice Department to serve as judges on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Cronan, principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's criminal division, previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District, where he supervised the office's terrorism and international narcotics unit and served in the civil division.

A graduate of Yale Law School, Cronan clerked for Circuit Judge Robert A. Katzmann, now chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, as well as District Judge Barrington D. Parker Jr. of the Southern District, according to a statement from the White House.

Lan serves as associate deputy attorney general in the DOJ's Office of the Deputy Attorney General in Washington. She is currently on detail from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District, where she most recently served as deputy chief of the appellate section. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she clerked for Judge William C. Bryson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

According to the U.S. courts, the Southern District is currently operating with six official vacancies. A Senate panel in June approved the nominations of Mary Kay Vyskocil and Lewis Liman, who are now waiting on a final confirmation vote by the full chamber.

The Judiciary Committee last week heard testimony from White Plains attorney Philip Halpern and is expected to advance the nomination.

Trump on Wednesday also nominated William Scott Hardy, a shareholder at the Pittsburgh firm Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Hardy, whose practice focuses on labor and employment matters, practices for more than a decade at Cohen & Grigsby before joining Ogletree Deakins in 2010.

John Heil III for U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Eastern and Western Districts of Oklahoma; John C. Hinderaker for the District of Arizona, Matthew Schelp for the Eastern District of Missouri and Carl Ezekiel Ross to serve as an associate judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Alina Ionescu of Virginia and Christian N. Weiler of Louisiana also received nods to serve as judges on the U.S. Tax Court.

Jonathan Ringel of the Daily Report contributed to this version of the article, which first appeared in the New York Law Journal.

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