Skadden offices in Washington, D.C. Credit: ALM

Chicago lawyer Michael Scudder got a call from the White House counsel's office one day after a vacancy opened up on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Scudder, a litigation partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom since 2009, said the White House call came on June 6. Judge Ann Williams took senior status the previous day, judiciary records show.

Scudder traveled to Washington about a week after the call to interview at the White House counsel's office and the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, according to his U.S. Senate questionnaire. In October, Scudder was back in Washington to meet separately with U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, both Democrats from Illinois.

The White House told Scudder on Dec. 4 he would be recommended to fill a vacancy on the appeals court. By that time, there were two slots open—one for Williams and another for Richard Posner, who retired in September. Williams, the appeals court's first African-American judge, has since joined the Chicago office of Jones Day.

The White House counsel's office reached out to U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve of the Northern District of Illinois on June 22 about her interest in a slot on the appeals court. She interviewed five days later with the White House counsel's office, according to her Senate questionnaire. St. Eve, a federal trial judge since 2002, spoke with Durbin and Duckworth on the phone in December, and the White House told her on Dec. 6 that President Donald Trump intended to nominate her to the appeals court.

Scudder, a former clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy, was picked to fill Posner's seat, and St. Eve would snag the Williams vacancy. The White House announced both nominations on Feb. 12. What follows are some highlights from Scudder's Senate questionnaire.

Scudder is a former White House lawyer in George W. Bush's administration, and he once publicly recalled telling “no” to the president about a new national security initiative.

Scudder recounted the memory in March at the Midtown Educational Foundation in Chicago. Here's how the foundation wrote it up: “Scudder was tasked with determining the legality of the initiative, and after hours of consideration with others, determined that there was no legal way to move forward. After Scudder reported his findings, he was asked to start from scratch and to try again. Scudder did just that, only to come to the same conclusion. Describing his interaction with the president as 'almost nose-to-nose,' Scudder reiterated his findings, to which the president replied, 'Do you have any idea how much this upsets me?' Scudder meekly replied, 'Yes sir, I do,' to which the president responded, 'OK then, we won't do it.'”

Scudder joined the Bush White House in 2007 from the U.S. Justice Department, where he was a top lawyer in the deputy U.S. attorney general's front office.

Scudder's practice primarily focuses on corporate clients facing accounting matters, but he has been the lead Skadden attorney on the team defending the University of North Carolina in a challenge to the school's admissions policy.

UNC permits considerations of race and ethnicity in the admissions process. The advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions Inc. sued the university in 2014. UNC's motion to dismiss, filed in October, argued that the advocacy group isn't eligible for “representational standing.”

Scudder also noted he was a lead lawyer for Toyota Motor Corp. in multidistrict litigation over claims rooted in alleged unintended acceleration. Scudder told the Senate he worked on key legal issues. The case settled in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. His opposing counsel was Steve Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol & Shapiro.

Scudder a long time ago was a Jones Day associate in the firm's Cleveland office, where he worked on appeals and trial briefs. He said in his questionnaire that he went to law school—Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law—wanting to be a corporate mergers and acquisition lawyer. He'd spent two years, before law school, working in public accounting at Ernst & Young.

Scudder has long been an advocate of pro bono service. “Not only do I regularly volunteer to represent indigent clients and serve on the boards of charitable organizations, I steadfastly encourage others to do so,” Scudder wrote in his Senate questionnaire.

“I often hear—and strongly disagree with—the view that a steady and active commitment to pro bono work and community service is incompatible with a successful career in private practice, especially at large law firms. I have written several articles, including in national publications, addressing and refuting this perspective.”

Writing at The National Law Journal in 2015, Scudder said: “There is something unsettling and artificial about shying away from any discussion of such an important part of the legal profession during on-campus interviews. This hesitancy risks creating the mistaken view that there is no place in private practice for lawyers to serve private clients while also working for the public good.” And more: “Reality and idealism can co-exist in our profession. Young associates can give their all for the firm's paying clients while making time to take on a criminal or habeas corpus appeal, help an organization acquire tax-exempt status, represent an indigent client, or serve on a charitable organization's board.”

At Skadden, Scudder said he's supervised or participated in 75 pro bono cases.

Scudder's Senate questionnaire is posted in full below:

 

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