February 22, 2013 - Oregon State Bar

Board of Governors Memo — Amending Appellate Selection Bylaws
November 10, 2013 Page 3
2003 and 2006). By early 2007, all mention in the BOG agendas and minutes refers to the
“Appellate Selection Committee.” On a substantive level, the “oral summary” of the
committee’s information is generally conveyed at the conclusion of the interviews and
candidate review, which the Governor’s counsel attends. In essence, the Governor’s counsel
sits through the interviews and listens to the selection committee’s discussion of the relative
merits of the candidates. No additional report is provided, either orally or in writing.
To implement the BOG’s decision to return to its prior practice, Bylaw 2.703 could be
amended as follows:
[Proposed]
Subsection 2.703 Statewide Judicial Appointments
(a) For judicial appointments to a statewide court, [no bar poll will be taken, but] bar
members will be notified of the impending appointment and will be [asked to inform]
invited to participate in the Board’s [of their interest] appellate recommendation
process. 3 If an appellate [selection] recommendation process has been concluded
within three months preceding the announcement of a new appellate vacancy, the
Board has the option of not conducting a separate process, but re-submitting the
previous list of highly qualified candidates to the Governor without notification to
members.
(b) [The Governor’s Office will deliver copies of the completed applications to the bar.
The Board will make recommendations to the Governor from the pool of candidates who
submit information to the Governor’s Office for appointment to fill vacant positions on
the Court of Appeals, Supreme Court or the Oregon Tax Court. For a vacancy on the
Oregon Tax Court, the Board will participate in the process only if requested by the
Governor] In addition to submitting its list of "highly qualified" candidates, the Board
will respond to any specific request of the Governor whether certain other candidates
in the pool meet a "qualified" standard. A "highly qualified" or "qualified"
recommendation is intended to be objective. Failure to recommend a candidate in any
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particular selection process is not a finding that the person is unqualified.
(c) The bar’s revview process will include, but is not limited to, review of the written
applications; interviews of each candidate, unless waived; reports from judges or
hearings officers before whom the candidate has appeared; reports from opposing
counsel in recent cases or other matters; reports from references supplied by the
candidate; and review of writing samples.
(d) Upon completion of the due diligence review, the Board’s Appellate Selection
Committee [on the Judiciary] will recommend to the Board at least three [a list of]
candidates [suitable for consideration by the Governor to the Board] it believes to be
highly qualified, based on the statutory requirements of [ORS 2.020 for the Supreme
Court, ORS 2.540 for the Court of Appeals, and ORS 305.445 for the Oregon Tax Court]
the position, as well as information obtained in the review process[, and as screened in
using, at a minimum,] and the following criteria: integrity, legal knowledge and ability,
3 It isn’t clear that the Governor’s office will continue to provide applications to us if they are displeased with the
change in our process. Prior to August 2005, applicants completed two forms, one for the Bar and one for the
Governor. One benefit of the change was to require only one form, which the Governor’s office provided to the
Bar.
4 An alternative would be to rank the candidates as “most highly qualified” and provide additional names that the
Board believes are “highly qualified” at the request of the Governor. The remaining candidates are presumptively
qualified and the final sentence of this paragraph could be deleted.