Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom partner Michael Scudder, President Donald Trump's nominee for a spot on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, largely escaped the tough questioning in his Senate hearing Wednesday that many of his fellow judicial nominees have faced.

Scudder, and U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve of the Northern District of Illinois, who is also nominated for the Seventh Circuit and testified Wednesday, both have support from the Democratic senators from Illinois, Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth. Home state senators' approval of Trump's judicial nominees has been a topic of contention recently, and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, D-Iowa, announced last year that nominees would no longer need approval of both senators to move forward in the nomination process.

“I'm also pleased that the president and counsel to the president, Don McGahn, worked closely with Sens. Durbin and Duckworth to select two exceptional nominees to serve as circuit judges on the Chicago-based Seventh Circuit,” Grassley said Wednesday. “This is another great example of the president and his team working closely with home-state senators to ensure the Senate fulfills its constitutional advice-and-consent function.”

Scudder is nominated to fill the seat left vacant by Judge Richard Posner, the outspoken and influential judge who retired last year after more than three decades on the bench. Scudder is a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, a Justice Department alum and a former White House lawyer under President George W. Bush. He joined Skadden's Chicago office in 2009.

Unlike some other Big Law nominees that have come before the committee, Scudder faced little pushback from senators about his advocacy for various clients. He was praised multiple times by Democrats for his impressive resume and pro bono advocacy. He was asked mainly about how his experiences would help him in his role as a judge, his views on statutory interpretation and how he would apply precedent.

Durbin also asked about the so-called Scudder memo, a document he prepared as associate counsel for the Bush White House. The document, Scudder explained, was a timeline of events in the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006, which were later found to be politically motivated. At the time, the White House counsel's office declined to provide the memo in full to the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General.

Scudder said he may have been the “logical” choice to write the 2007 document, as he had just joined the White House from the deputy attorney general's office. He added he was not involved in the firings or the decision to withhold it from the OIG.

“I wouldn't have had any role in that decision,” Scudder said.