“With plenty of former corporate lawyers on the federal bench, there’s a need for more judges who spring from modest roots and ‘who care about the little guy,’ said Sen. Jack Reed, a Harvard-trained lawyer who asked President Obama last year to nominate the 51-year-old McConnell [worth $15 million], a longtime political and financial supporter.”
R.I. judicial nominee haunted by business accusations of prejudice
John E. Mulligan
The Providence Journal
5/13/2010
WASHINGTON, D.C. — It is not clear whether John F. McConnell Jr.’s prospects for a federal judgeship have diminished since the U.S. Chamber of Commerce took the extraordinary step Tuesday of calling for the rejection of the Providence lawyer’s nomination.
But as McConnell faces the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, it is clear that he and his law firm are such big players in the business of mass-plaintiff lawsuits that his candidacy for the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island has the attention of both sides in a long-running battle over the direction of civil litigation.
Although the state’s epic lawsuit against manufacturers of lead paint ended in victory for the defendants two years ago, it has emerged as a keystone of business opposition to McConnell — including what the influential Chamber says is the first stand it has ever taken against a nominee to the federal trial courts.
…To his opponents, McConnell’s legal career — and his $15-million fortune — are so deeply rooted in antipathy to corporations that he might prove incapable of giving business clients a fair shake in his courtroom.
“There are people who are great partisans and there are people who are great umpires,” said Phil Goldberg, a Washington lawyer who wrote a brief for business clients in the successful appeal of the lead paint verdict to the Rhode Island Supreme Court.
McConnell’s career “proves that he is a great partisan,” said Goldberg…
…Without the backing of McConnell’s South Carolina-based firm, Motley Rice, former Rhode Island Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse said it would have been “very difficult” for him to sue the paint companies and counter “the obstruction and delay that the lead-paint lawyers barraged us with.” Now a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democrat Whitehouse joined Reed in recommending McConnell for the federal bench. Mr. Obama nominated McConnell in March.
Read the complete article at The Providence Journal.
Read also “McConnell’s answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s questionnaire“
